Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Ossett Corporation Water Bill [Lords],

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Melville Trust Order Confirmation Bill,

Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Water) Bill,

Pilotage Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

MINISTRY or HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL,

"to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Minister of Health relating to Ashton-under-Lyne, Greenford, Ilfracombe, Margate, and New Mills," presented by Sir ALFRED MOND; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 115.]

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA (EDUCATION).

Mr. L. MALONE: 3.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs where the Committee appointed to consider the question of the education of Chinese on British lines is holding its meetings; and whether he will give the names of those who constitute the Committee?

Earl WINTERTON (for Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): The Committee meets at the Foreign Office. It is constituted as follows:

Sir John Jordan, G.C.M.G., K.C.B. (Chairman);
Sir Samuel Hoare, C.M.G., M.P.;
Sir William Clark, K.C.S.I., C.M.G., Comptroller-General of the Department of Overseas Trade;
Sir Charles Addis, K.C.M.G., of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank;
Mr. Victor Wellesley, C.B., of the Foreign Office;
Dr. R. P. Scott, of the Board of Education;
Mr. F. Anderson, of the China Association.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPAIN (COMMERCIAL TREATY).

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: 5.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether there is in force a commercial treaty between Britain and Spain; if not, whether one is contemplated or under discussion; and by what date it is proposed that it shall become operative?

Earl WINTERTON: The present position is governed by an exchange of Notes between the Spanish and British Governments of 1894, by virtue of which the products and manufactures of the United Kingdom enjoy the lower rates of the second column of the Spanish tariff as well as any reduction of those rates which may be granted by Spain to other European States by treaty. Negotiations are now in progress with the Spanish Government for the conclusion of a commercial treaty. It is not possible at this moment to forecast the date when such treaty may come into force.

Mr. SAMUEL: How long has the discussion been going on; and has any complaint been received from those engaged in British trade as to the treatment of their trade by the Spanish authorities in the immediate past?

Earl WINTERTON: I can imagine nothing less calculated to bring about a treaty than to raise such a question at the moment when a treaty is under negotiation.

Oral Answers to Questions — CONSULAR SERVICE (MR. GANN).

Lieut.-Colonel HURST: 6.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware of the recommendations made by His Majesty's Minister at Berne and of His Majesty's Consul-General at Zurich in favour of the continued employment of Mr. Vice-Consul Gann, late of the Dover Patrol, in the Consular Service; whether he is acquainted with this officer's long record of consular, naval, and intelligence work; on what grounds was he removed from his post at Zurich; whether in making displacements of this character he has regard to war services; and, if so, why 27 men of military age, but of no war service, received Consular posts at or about the same date as Mr. Gann's dismissal?

Earl W1NTERTON: I am aware of Mr. Gann's record and his qualifications including the fact that he had war service. They were fully considered at the time of his application for admission to the permanent Consular Service in 1918. Mr. Gann's employmentin His Majesty's Consulate-General at Zurich was of a temporary character and, as in the case of other temporary appointments, was terminated when the necessity for it ceased to exist. With regard to the last part of the question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given by the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade to the Member for Canterbury on 29th March last.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

JUTLAND BATTLE (GERMAN TORPEDOES).

Captain Viscount CURZON: 10.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the total number of torpedoes fired by the German fleet at the battle of Jutland and the average range can be approximately stated; and whether the figures can be sub-divided between capital ships and torpedo craft, together with the number of hits recorded against the British Fleet?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): Approximately, 66 torpedoes fired by the German Fleet were seen by His Majesty's ships. Two hits were recorded against the British Fleet. The number of torpedoes fired from enemy capital ships
cannot be stated, but the percentage is estimated to be small. An official German report on the Battle of Jutland gives the total number of torpedoes fired as 107, but does not state how many of these were fired from capital ships. According to this report, the ranges at which torepdoes were fired from the destroyer flotillas varied between 10,000 and 6,000 yards.

Mr. MALONE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if the Admiralty had not dropped the development of torpedo-carrying aircraft there would not have been so many German ships to fire torpedoes?

PRIZE MONEY.

Mr. MALONE: 12.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether any applications have been made by discharged, demobilised, or retired naval ratings, who are unemployed or in necessitous circumstances, for an immediate payment of the prize money which is due to them; and, if so, whether he will see that priority is given to these individual claims before payments are made to men now actively employed in His Majesty's ships?

Mr. AMERY: Arrangements have been made to give priority in cases of special necessity.

GIBRALTAR (SUMMIT SIGNAL STATION).

Mr. MALONE: 13.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether it has been decided to discontinue the firing of the sunrise and sunset gun, popularly known as morning and evening gunfire, from the sgnal station on the summit of the rock of Gibraltar; what annual saving is thereby effected; is he aware of the inconvenience caused by the abolition of the signal of closing the frontier gates, etc.; whether this signal station is to be totally abandoned: whether this station, in addition to other duties, reported passing and incoming shipping, town and harbour fires, wrecks, etc.; and, if so, who is now responsible for these duties?

Mr. AMERY: As the Summit Signal Station is frequently hidden in mist it-has been decided to abolish it and transfer its duties to the Windmill Hill Signal Station. The firing from Summit Hill, the cost of which was about £190 a year, has, therefore, been discontinued. I
understand, however, that if after a month's trial it is found that the resumption of the time guns is desirable, the military authorities will assume responsibility for them.

OFFICERS (SEASON TICKETS).

Sir T. BRAMSDON: 15.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the regulations governing the repayment of the cost of season tickets for officials on transfer from one establishment to another will be extended to officers and chief and petty officers of the Royal Navy similarly situated?

Mr. AMERY: Season tickets are only granted to civilian officials in lieu of the removal expenses for their families, furniture, etc., to which they are entitled on transfer from one establishment to another. Royal Naval personnel on transfer from one appointment to another are entitled only to free conveyance for themselves and personal baggage, and the question of removal expenses does not, therefore, arise. I regret that in the present state of public finance, it is not possible to contemplate the grant of season tickets to naval personnel between their old homes and new place of duty in the circumstances.

RAILWAY PASSES.

Sir T. BRAMSDON: 16.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the recent concession instituted as a permanent measure by Admiralty Fleet Order No. 555 of 1922, authorising the issue of a free railway pass to enable the nearest relative and one other to visit dockyard workmen injured on duty when they are employed at a distance from their own yards, will be extended to the relatives of men of the Royal Navy injured on duty?

Mr. AMERY: Authority already exists under Admiralty Order No. 328/20 for the grant of free railway warrants to not more than two relatives for the purpose of visiting naval ratings who are dangerously ill in hospital, and this concession applies when the illness is due to injuries received on duty.

SHIPS FOR SALE (MEDWAY).

Captain BOWYER: 17.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether it is contemplated that
the ships at present lying in the Medway for sale to be broken up will be sold to German firms for the purpose of breaking up in Germany; and whether the two ships "London" and "Venerable" have already been sold to German firms; and whether he knows the ultimate destination of these ships?

Mr. AMERY: As these vessels become available for sale it is the intention to offer them to competitive tender for breaking up in this country as far as possible. Invitations for some of the vessels will be issued within the next few days. The "London" and "Venerable," which were sold to a British firm, have been very largely demolished here, and further work on them could only be carried out in this country at a loss. They are occupying valuable space, and hindering further shipbreaking work, and the Admiralty have accordingly agreed to the transfer of the hulks to Germany to complete breaking up, so that fresh work may be put in hand in this country.

PEMBROKE DOCKYARD.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: 21.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what saving would accrue in the Estimates, 1922–23 and 1923–24, if Pembroke Dockyard were abolished entirely; and what sum would probably be realised if this Government property were sold?

Mr. AMERY: It is impossible to say what the saving would be during 1922–23 and 1923–24, as these figures would depend on whether Pembroke Dockyard is closed down or is disposed of to a commercial firm as a going concern, but the total annual saving that would result when either of the above had been completed is calculated at approximately £120,000, subject to a certain increase for some years on the non-effective Votes. No estimate can be given of the sum which would be realised if this Government property were sold, as it would entirely depend on the market, and up to the present there has been no commercial demand for this establishment.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: Is not this dockyard entirely superfluous to the requirements of the Navy, and was its abolition actually recommended in the Geddes Report?

Mr. AMERY: The national reason for the retention of the dockyard is set out, very fully, in the First Lord's Memorandum.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are there not naval reasons against retaining this dockyard?

Mr. AMERY: From the purely naval point of view, there would be an economy in closing the dockyard.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: Will the hon. Gentleman clearly state what other reasons there are for the retention of this dockyard?

Mr. AMERY: They have been very fully stated.

Mr. ROSE: Has the propriety of closing down all dockyards and sending the work to Messrs. Beardmore occurred to the Board of Admiralty?

Oral Answers to Questions — QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 14.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can furnish the House with any information as to schemes for settlement in the Queen Charlotte Islands?

Mr. AMERY: The Overseas Settlement Committee are authoritatively advised that communication with these islands, which lie to the north of Vancouver Island, is difficult, that the population is small, and that the islands are not at present suitable to settlers from this country, except for stock raising and dairying, which could be made successful under proper management, but requires considerable capital. They have already issued a warning as regards settlement in these Islands, and they would urge any persons who may contemplate settling there to communicate with their secretary at 6, St. James's Square, before coming to any decision.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the land in the Queen Charlotte Islands owned by the State or by private persons?

Mr. AMERY: I think a great deal of it is still Crown land—still under virgin forest.

Oral Answers to Questions — SEA AND AIR POWER (UNITED STATES).

Viscount CURZON: 19.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether steps can be taken to publish the Report of the Joint Army and Navy Board appointed by the United States Government to inquire into sea and air power as a White Paper?

Mr. AMERY: I am afraid that owing to the expense involved the printing of this Report on the results of the United States bombing and gunfire experiments with ex-German ships would not be justified, especially as it was published in the American Press last autumn. I shall, however, be happy to supply typed copies to any hon. Members who may be interested.

Viscount CURZON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this Report, not only deals with the bombing of ex-German ships, but also gives very valuable conclusions arrived at by the Committee set up by the United States Government?

Mr. AMERY: It is a very interesting Report and I shall be very happy to send any hon. Member who likes to write to me, a typed copy.

Commander BELLAIRS: Would it not be better to send a typed copy to the Library of the House of Commons?

Mr. AMERY: Certainly.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE BOARDS.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 23.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he has received a communication from the joint committee of London co-operative societies and the London district of the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers urging him to sign at the earliest possible moment the Trade Board rates for the grocery and provision trades; and whether, in view of the publication of the Cave Report on Trade Boards, he is now in a position to make a statement on this subject?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Dr. Macnamara): Yes, Sir. I am not, however, in a position to communicate with the Grocery and Provisions Trade Boards regarding the determination of minimum rates of wages now. I hope to be able to do so at an early date.

Mr. DAVIES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very strong feeling in the country arising out of his indecision in this matter; and when can we have a definite decision from him?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I must deal with this on the lines it is proposed to take with regard to what I may call the Cave recommendations. Until I have got them, I cannot communicate with the Boards. I will do so at the earliest possible opportunity.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: 26.
asked the Minister of Labour whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation during the present Session to give effect to the recommendations of Lord Cave's Committee on Trade Boards?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I have given and am giving very careful consideration to the important recommendations of the Committee over which Lord Cave pie-sided. It is our intention to prepare a Bill dealing with the matters raised in the Report, and we hope that it may be possible to find time for its consideration during the present Session. I should like to take the public opportunity offered by this question to tender my thanks to Lord Cave and his Committee for the prompt and painstaking way in which they carried out the Commission I asked them to undertake.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAGES (AWARDS AND AGREEMENTS).

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 24.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he has been made aware of the decision reached by the Association of Joint Industrial Councils and Interim Reconstruction Committees in favour of legislation being passed to give the necessary power to him to make binding upon the whole of any industry any wages awards or agreements, or arrangements as to working hours and conditions made or confirmed by joint industrial councils or interim reconstruction committees; and, if so, will he state his attitude towards such a decision?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I am aware of the decision reached by the Association of Joint Industrial Councils. As has already been stated, the proposal for legislation to make joint industrial council agreements compulsory through-
out an industry appears to require a greater measure of agreement by employers' and workers' organisations generally than has yet been signified.

Oral Answers to Questions — WOMEN HEALTH VISITORS (SALARIES).

Mr. GALBRAITH: 35.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has made any recommendation as to the salaries to be paid by local authorities to women health visitors; and, if so, whether he is satisfied that the salaries paid in accordance with his recommendation are adequate to secure efficient service?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Alfred Mond): I have made no general recommendation as to the salaries to be paid to health visitors, but in various particular cases I have taken action to secure such remuneration as will provide an efficient service.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

SWANSEA.

Mr. KENNEDY: 38.
asked the Minister of Health if his attention has been drawn to reports of statements made by the local medical officer at a recent meeting of the Swansea Board of Guardians to the effect that many families were in the workhouse on account of being unable to find accommodation outside; that the evil of overcrowding is general in Swansea; that, in a case cited, eight families are paying £400 per annum for accommodation in one house, the standard rent of which is £45; and whether, in view of those disclosures, any action will be taken, in the interest of public health and for the protection of families compelled to accept accommodation as sub-tenants?

Sir A. MOND: My attention has not previously been drawn to the statements of the local medical officer referred to, but I am aware of the housing conditions in Swansea. I have authorised the erection by the Swansea Corporation of 789 houses under the State-aided housing scheme, of which only 183 have hitherto been completed, and I am of opinion that the conditions mentioned will best be remedied by pressing on with the completion of the remaining houses.
I may add, in reference to the last part of the question, that bye-laws made by the Town Council under Section 26 of the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1910, which are specially directed to this point, have recently come into force.

COTTAGES (RENTALS).

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 41.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the decrease in the cost of living and in the wages of the workers, he will give favourable consideration to the suggestion now being made in several quarters that the Ministry of Health should take steps to secure a commensurate reduction in the rental of cottage property and prevent undue advantage being taken of the shortage of houses?

Sir A. MOND: The suggestion of the hon. Member would require legislation which I do not see my way to introduce. The rate of rents of cottage property will, like the price of other commodities, have to follow economic laws.

KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.

Mr. MILLS: 58.
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Kingston-on-Thames Corporation have houses ready for occupation which they are refusing to let; one instance is that of Mr. F. C. Widdicombe, of Bridge Cottage, Wooburn, Bucks, employed at Mount Pleasant post office; that the applicant, an ex-service man, applied to this authority on 30th March to be accepted as a tenant of one of the corporation's houses; that he was informed on 31st March that the houses are offered for sale and were not to let; and, in view of the fact that Mr. Widdicombe had to accept accommodation at Wooburn after demobilisation because of the impossibility of obtaining it nearer London, and that the requirements of the Post Office authorities necessitate that he should live nearer the post office at which he is employed, will he issue an order to this and other local authorities to the effect that where houses are ready for occupation suitable applicants should be permitted to occupy them regardless of whether the property is for sale or not?

Sir A. MOND: I have inquired fully into this case and I am satisfied that it is one in which the local authority are able to dispose of the houses by early sale to intending occupiers; and it is in
accordance with the policy of the Government that they should do so. I shall keep in touch with the local authority to ensure that as little delay as possible occurs in securing the occupation of the houses.

Mr. MILLS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the exact number of houses for which grants have been made in aid of buildings which have been held empty for sale for periods extending over 18 months, and does he consider that this state of things is a fair reflex of the desires and promises of the Government?

Sir A. MOND: I am not aware of any-such cases. I do not believe they can exist. There are a very small number of houses empty in this case. One has been sold, and I am assured by the local authorities that they expect to dispose of the others at a very early date.

BRADFORD.

Mr. MILLS: 59.
asked the Minister of Health, having regard to the fact that, according to the medical officer of health for Bradford, persons are paying as much as 7s. per week for a furnished cellar-dwelling of one room only which has been declared uninhabitable, that rooms are being sub-let at 4s. and 5s. a. week, that overcrowding and insanitary conditions are present and constantly increasing, that the Ministry of Health has only sanctioned the erection of 856 houses for which there are about 6,000 applicants, of whom 4,036 are ex-service men and of whom 3,245 are living in apartments, and that, as similar conditions more or less as bad obtain in various industrial areas, if he is now prepared to allow local authorities to continue to provide housing accommodation based on the proved facts of overcrowding according to the official standard?

Sir A. MOND: I have recently authorised the local authority to which the hon. Member refers to obtain tenders for a further 50 houses in addition to the 854 already approved, and I have arranged for a deputation from the local authority to be received to-morrow, when any suggestion which they may wish to make will be fully considered. On the general question of an extension of the St ate-assisted housing scheme, I cannot add anything to the replies I have already given, but I shall be happy to
entertain proposals from local authorities for building houses on their own responsibility.

EDMONTON.

Sir F. HALL: 60.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the Edmonton District Council has notified the tenants on its housing estates that they must discontinue taking in lodgers or vacate their tenements; that there is at present a great shortage of housing accommodation which will be intensified if this decision is enforced; and if he proposes to make any representations to the district council on the subject?

Sir A. MOND: I understand that in order to avoid overcrowding the Tenancy Agreement in the case of the houses in the Assisted Housing Scheme of the Edmonton Urban District Council provides that tenants shall not take in lodgers without the consent of the council and that the council are requiring compliance with this provision. While the matter is one which is within the discretion of the local authority, I will communicate with them on the subject.

Sir F. HALL: Is not the right hon. Gentleman's Department at the present time subsidising this district council; and, if so, to what extent?

Sir A. MOND: Yes, certainly, but it is within the discretion of the local authority to make reasonable conditions. I do not think it is unreasonable that they should ask for their consent to be obtained to tenants taking lodgers.

Sir F. HALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that there is an enormous number of persons who are quite unable to obtain empty houses or apartments, and will he see what he can do with this district council?

Sir A. MOND: Yes, certainly, I shall communicate with the local authority that their consent should not be unreasonably withheld. But we do not want houses to be overcrowded.

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

Mr. CAIRNS: 63.
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that, for the year 1920, in the city of Newcastle-on-Tyne, 843 births occurred in one-room dwellings and that 167 of those children died, mortality 198.1 per thousand; that 2,155 births occurred in two-room dwellings and that 291 died, which is 175.3 per thousand; that 1,529 children were born
in three-room dwellings and that 171 died, being at the rate of 111 per thousand mortality; and, if these statements are true, will he try to put a stop to such a state of affairs by erecting more suitable homes for the poor?

Sir A. MOND: I am aware of the report of the Medical Officer of Health of Newcastle containing the particulars in the first part of the question. The housing situation in Newcastle is that approval has been given under the local authorities' scheme for 1,003 houses, of which 482 have been completed, 289 are in various stages of construction, and 232 have not yet been commenced. I shall continue to keep the situation under careful review.

Mr. RAFFAN: Are not the figures given for Newcastle-on-Tyne typical of the whole country wherever there is serious overcrowding?

Oral Answers to Questions — IMPURE MILK, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

Mr. DOYLE: 39.
asked the Minister of Health whether ho has yet taken any, and, if so, what steps to deal with the question of the sale of impure milk in Newcastle-on-Tyne, wherein it is stated on official authority that in the analysis and bacteriological examination of samples recently taken approximately 50 per cent, showed really serious pollution; and whether this serious menace to the health of the citizens will receive immediate attention and drastic treatment?

Sir A. MOND: As I promised last week, a medical officer of my Department is now visiting Newcastle, and is inquiring into this matter.

Sir J. RANDLES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any Grade A milk available in the North of England suitable for this area?

Sir A. MOND: I could not answer that without notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES ACT, 1919.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the repeal of Part I of the Agriculture Act of 1920, and the necessity of drastic reduction in expenditure, it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation
to repeal Parts II and III of The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Act, 1919,?which set up councils and advisory committees for England and Wales and county agricultural committees.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): I have been asked to reply. It is not the intention of His Majesty's Government to introduce legislation for the purpose indicated.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: What public service is being performed by these various committees, in view of the fact that compulsory cultivation is done away with and that very substantial expense is caused to the taxpayers for the officials of these committees?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: My hon. and gallant Friend, I think, does not realise that, if legislation were carried on the lines he suggests, we should have to get rid of the Council of Agriculture for England, the Agricultural Advisory Committee, and all the agricultural committees of the county councils. I can only say that most of these bodies are doing very useful work.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: But what useful purpose are they serving? They are costing a lot of money, and as all their duties are taken away, what are they doing?

Mr. SPEAKER: This should be raised on the Estimates.

Oral Answers to Questions — RECORDER OF LOXDON.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the statement by the Lord High Chancellor that he would be surprised if the recent appointment of the hon. and learned Member for Upton (Sir E. Wild) had not been accompanied by a condition that he should resign his seat in this House either immediately or in the near future; and whether such condition was in fact made when the appointment was sanctioned?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): I am informed by the Lord Chancellor that the position is as follows:
The Lord Chancellor makes appointments where vacancies occur in the minor
judicial offices in the City of London. The appointment of Recorder is in the hands of the Court of Aldermen, subject to the assent of His Majesty. It has been the practice for successive Lord Chancellors to impose upon those whom they appoint the condition that they should neither continue to be nor become Members of Parliament. The late Recorder never stood for or sat in Parliament after his appointment to that office 22 years ago.
A Recorder appointed under the Municipal Corporations Acts has, ever since 1835, been precluded from serving in Parliament for the borough for which he is Recorder. The Recorder of the City of London holds by far the most important judicial office in the City. The Central Criminal Court is in almost continuous session, and the Recorder tries in any year more criminal cases than any one High Court Judge, while, when sitting in the Mayor's Court he exercises civil jurisdiction which is unlimited in amount. The constituency for which the present Recorder sits is within the area of the jurisdiction of the Criminal Court in which he sits.
The Lord Chancellor would feel great surprise if the Corporation, in filling this high office, contemplated that the Judge so appointed would remain for any considerable length of time in the House of Commons.
The Lord Chancellor thinks it right to add that the matter was not present to his mind when he advised His Majesty to approve the exercise by the present Recorder of judicial functions, or he would have thought it proper to raise the matter then. He is placing himself in communication with the Corporation and the Recorder, and does not anticipate that any serious disagreement upon the matter of policy involved is likely to arise.
I do not see my hon. and learned Friend the Recorder at present in the House, and I regret that this material has come into my hands too late to advise him beforehand that I was going to give an answer of that character, so that he could be present.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in accordance with the usual custom, I communicated with my hon. and learned Friend before putting this question down?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am glad to hear that. I thought it not unlikely that he would do so. I myself would have liked to have communicated with my hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that on two occasions in the latter part of last century— one, I think, from 1880 to 1890—the Recorder for the City of London was, and continued to be for many years, a Member of this House; and is it not also the case that those in the City who recommended his appointment were pleased and glad that he should continue to be a Member of this House? Sir Charles Hall was one.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, I believe I had the pleasure of sitting in this House with Sir Charles Hall. The usual practice and the propriety are better stated in the language of the Lord Chancellor than in my own. I think there has been a general tightening of the practice in this respect within my lifetime.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is not the reason why Recorders have not sat here in the past, that they were not very well qualified for it, and might not have been elected?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, I think not.

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-SERVICE MEN (GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS).

Mr. HURD: 25.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will instruct the Appointments Department to ask all Government Departments to furnish a list of the vacancies now existing, and likely to exist, in the next 12 months which could be filled by ex-service men of the Navy and British or Indian Armies after a short preliminary training without increase in establishment?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hilton Young): I have been asked to reply. Arrangements are already in operation whereby this information is furnished to the Joint Substitution Board established under the recommendations of Lord Lytton's Committee. In view of the numbers of ex-service men temporarily employed in Government Departments who are being discharged
on reduction of staffs and to whom preference is given in allocating fresh vacancies, there is little scope at present for the appointment of ex-service men not so employed.

Mr. HURD: Are there not competitive examinations now being held, or about to be held, to bring in fresh men, when there are ex-service men who, with a little training, could well qualify for these positions?

Lieut.-Colonel ASTBURY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that disabled ex-service men are being dismissed from Government Departments and that young men who have seen no War service are being taken on?

Mr. YOUNG: In reply to the, first question—I am answering on the spur of the moment and would like to have had notice—I am under a strong impression that no such examination is to be held in the immediate future. As to the second question, I am aware of no such case, and if the hon. and gallant Member will forward to me any such case of which he has information, it will be immediately inquired into.

Lieut.-Colonel ASTBURY: I am much obliged.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

INSURANCE (ADMINISTRATION).

Mr. WALTER SMITH: 27.
askd the Minister of Labour if he will lay upon the Table of the House a copy of any regulations, instructions, or recommendations issued to local employment committees in connection with the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1922?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I am arranging to place in the library copies of the memoranda issued to the local employment committees in connection with the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1922, and of certain earlier memoranda to which reference is made therein.

Mr. G. BARNES: Has the right hon. Gentleman done anything to embody in any of these regulations provisions for improving the status of the committees in accordance with the recommendations made by the Committee over which I had the honour of presiding?

Dr. MACNAMARA: These are rules and regulations for the administration of the Insurance Acts. I do not think the status of the committees arises.

DOMESTIC SERVICE.

Mr. PENNEFATHER: 31.
asked the Minister of Labour the average sum per week which is being paid in unemployment benefit to women suitable for domestic service who do not accept situations when offered them?

Dr. MACNAMARA: A woman who is suitable for and refuses domestic service would not be granted unemployment benefit. On a good many occasions claims to benefit have been rejected on this ground.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

Sir ROBERT CLOUGH: 28.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the national loss in time and wages, respectively, through industrial unrest in the last two months?

Dr. MACNAMARA: The aggregate time lost in March and April, in trade disputes involving stoppages of work, is estimated to have amounted to approximately nine million working days. This figure includes time lost by workpeople thrown out of work, owing to the disputes, at the establishments where the disputes occurred, as well as by those workpeople actually on strike or locked out; but it does not include time lost by workpeople rendered idle at other establishments, as to which figures are not available. The information in my possession is not sufficient to enable me to give a reliable estimate of the aggregate loss in wages resulting from the disputes.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMAN REPARATION.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALL: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether this country is jointly responsible with its Allies for the decisions of the Reparation Commission as to the indemnity payments to be made by Germany; and, in view of the accumulation of evidence that Germany is able but unwilling to meet her financial obligations, what steps the Government proposes to take to enforce the treaty undertakings entered into by Germany?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The action to be taken in the event of default by Germany is a matter for the consideration of the Allied Powers.

Sir F. HALL: Is the Government not of opinion that Germany, in many cases, is shamming her inability to meet her reparation, and is she to be allowed to be left in that position?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think I can usefully answer a question of that kind. If Germany is declared in default by the Reparation Commission, the action to be taken is a matter for consideration by the Allied Governments. I regret they have not already met, or agreed to meet, to consider what should be done, but that is not our fault.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Under the Treaty, is it competent for any one of the Allies to enforce sanctions alone, without the concurrence of the other Allies?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman will not expect me to answer a question of that kind without notice.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is my right hon. Friend aware that nearly a quarter of the whole German Empire is under timber, and during the last three years we have imported £180,000,000 of timber into this country?

Sir F. HALL: Is the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn) aware that, in the first part of my question, I have referred to the fact that this country is jointly responsible with its Allies?

Oral Answers to Questions — TURKEY (BRITISH INTERESTS).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 48.
asked the Prime Minister whether the text of the recent pact or agreement between the Italian Government and the Sublime Porte has been received by His Majesty's Government; whether, in view of the economic agreements made between the French and Italian Governments, respectively, on the one hand, and the Angora and Constantinople Governments, respectively, on the other hand, His Majesty's Government are taking steps to safeguard the commercial interests of British subjects in Turkey in Asia, and
to secure for them favourable treatment as regards concessions and trading rights in those regions; and, if so, what are they?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. With regard to the remainder of the question, His Majesty's Government do not consider that British commercial interests are likely to be adversely affected by the French and Italian agreements to which the hon. and gallant Member refers. Such interests will be protected in the final settlement, pending which concessions and trading rights are of uncertain value.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: If these concessions are going to be granted under a preference to French or Italian subjects, is that no bound to act against the interests of British people, who also want to obtain trading and other concessions?

Oral Answers to Questions — OIL CONCESSIONS, RUSSIA.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Royal Dutch and Shell groups of oil interests, or other oil companies, have approached His Majesty's Government for diplomatic support in obtaining concessions for oil exploitation in Russia; if so, how has His Majesty's Government received such approaches; whether His Majesty's Government have any knowledge of negotiations proceeding, or which have proceeded, at Genoa between British or Dutch oil companies and the Soviet Government of Russia; and whether His Majesty's Government can state their policy with regard to attempts by British subjects to obtain oil exploitation rights in Russia?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Foreign Office was approached in September last, and naturally promised to give the support always properly given to legitimate British enterprise. His Majesty's Government have no information as to the position reached in the negotiations. I am not clear as to the intention of the last part of the question, but His Majesty's Government are prepared to support British subjects in legitimate efforts to secure commercial concessions in foreign countries.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the latter part of the question was intended, I hoped, to draw just such a reply as he gave?

Oral Answers to Questions — CANADIAN CATTLE EMBARGO.

Mr. W. SHAW: 50 and 52.
asked the Lord Privy Seal (1) if he can now fix the date for the promised discussion of the Canadian cattle embargo question;
(2) if, in view of the promises made to Canada and the keen interest taken in this matter throughout the Dominion, he will, in arranging for the discussion, so fix the date as to make it possible for the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Churchill) to be present?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. I cannot yet name a day for this discussion, but I shall certainly hope to fix a date at which it will be possible for my right hon. Friend to be present.

Mr. STURROCK: May I ask whether we shall have a discussion on this important matter before the House rises for Whitsuntide, in view of the very great interest manifested?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot undertake at the present time to give any pledge as to when the discussion can take place. We must make progress with Government business before I am asked to find a date for non-Government business.

Mr. THOMAS: If a date is fixed, will the right hon. Gentleman leave the judgment of the House free, and not put on Whips?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I said that long ago.

Mr. STURROCK: Is it not the case that the Government gave a very definite pledge with regard to the question of Canadian cattle, so that it is really a, matter of Government business?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Government announced that they were not prepared to introduce legislation this Session, in the present state of agricultural opinion in this country and of the agricultural industry. Under those circumstances, it is not Government business. I did undertake that I would find an opportunity, not necessarily a whole
day, for the discussion of the subject, but that must be when we have made real progress with Government business.

Captain W. BENN: Does the right hon. Gentleman say, that whatever Resolution this House passes, the Government does not propose to pass legislation?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I did not say that. [An HON. MEMBER: "Will you take action?"]

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I should like to see the Resolution, and to know what is the action of the House. The decision of the Government was that they would not be responsible for introducing legislation this Session in the present state of the great mass of agricultural opinion, and the present difficulties of the agricultural community, but that if the question came before the House they would not put on the Government Whips, or make the decision one on which the fate of Governments depends.

Oral Answers to Questions — SIBERIA (JAPANESE TROOPS).

Mr. G. BARNES: 51.
asked the Lord Privy Seal if he is aware that an understanding was given by the Japanese that, under certain circumstances, they would withdraw their forces from Siberia; and if he can make any statement as to whether or not such undertaking has been carried out, and, if not, as to the reasons?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I understand that it is owing to the breakdown of the Dairen Conference that the Japanese Government have been unable so far to give effect to their declared intention to withdraw their troops from Siberia.

Mr. BARNES: Is there any prospect of this Conference being reopened?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid that I do not know.

Oral Answers to Questions — GENOA CONFERENCE.

GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE.

The following question stood on the Paper in the name of Lieut.-Commander KEN WORTHY:

53. To ask the Lord Privy Seal whether the notes of the conversations at Genoa between the Prime Minister and Monsieur
Barthou on Saturday last on the return of the latter from Paris have yet reached him; and whether, in view of the various accounts of these conversations which have appeared in the Press, these notes can be laid upon the Table?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Before asking this question, may I say that it was put on the Paper before the recent publication of M. Barthou's letter and M. Barthou's reply? In any case, I do not think it affects the question.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the latter part, I do not think that I can usefully add to the answers which I gave yesterday, when I dealt with this subject fully.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Have we not so far had statements of what did not occur at the Conference, and is it not very desirable that we should have an agreed statement of what did occur?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITIES (GRANTS).

Major HILLS: 54.
asked the Lord Privy Seal when the Treasury Estimate will be taken authorising the grants to Oxford and Cambridge?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer which I gave on 1st May to a question by the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh.

TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION).

Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: 77.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether, having regard to the dissatisfaction widely expressed by school teachers with the proposal that they should be required to make a, contribution in respect of their pension, and particularly as regards other matters affecting teachers serving in independent schools, arising out of the distinction between qualified and recognised service under the School Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1918, he will arrange that the reference to the Committee, which he has promised to appoint, shall be sufficiently wide to
enable the Committee, after hearing evidence, to report as to Amendments to the Act that might be recommended for adoption by the Government; and whether he can now state when the proposed Committee will be appointed?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): The Government propose to set up a Committee with the following Terms of Reference:
To inquire what modifications are desirable in the system of superannuation established by the School Teachers (Super-animation) Act, 1918, regard being had both to the economy of public funds and to the provision of adequate and suitable benefits for members of the teaching profession, as well as to the effect which such modifications are calculated to have on the scheme framed in terms of the Education (Scotland) (Superannuation) Act, 1919.
I hope to be able to announce the composition of the Committee shortly.

Sir P. MAGNUS: Will the evidence of other people who are interested in education be taken?

Mr. FISHER: I assume that would be so, but that is a matter for the Chairman of the Committee to determine.

Mr. RENDALL: Why was this answer not given some weeks ago, when I and many other hon. Members put the same question?

Mr. FISHER: I did indicate that the Government were determined to have an inquiry, but the terms of reference had not then been settled. My right hon. Friend was at Genoa and I thought it better to defer the answer.

Mr. A. SHAW: Is it proposed to go on with the Bill as circulated to-day?

TEACHERS (WAR SERVICE).

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM: 78.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he will state the number of women teachers whose War service was formerly recognised by the Board as teaching service; at what date the Board ceased to recognise such service as teaching service; the number of men teachers whose War service still counts as teaching service for the purpose of calculating salaries; and why, in the case of women only, this recognition is now withdrawn?

Mr. FISHER: There is no question of the withdrawal by the Board of a recognition previously granted. The Board have not until recently had occasion to consider whether they could recognise for the calculation of grant additional expenditure of local education authorities involved in treating service with the forces of the Crown during the War as teaching service for purposes of increments on the Burnham Scales. The Board's decision was explained in Circulars 1227 and 1244, and became operative from the date of the introduction of the standard scales. I am unable to give the number of men teachers whose War service has been treated as teaching service under those Circulars.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALLOTMENTS BILL.

Mr. G. BARNES: 55.
asked the Lord Privy Seal if he can yet name a day for the introduction of the Allotments Bill; and if the Scotch Bill will be introduced simultaneously with the English?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Allotments Bill has already been introduced in another place, and has received its Second Beading. It is hoped that the Scottish Bill will be introduced very shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions — NEAR EAST (CHRISTIAN MINORITIES).

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: 56.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether his attention has been called to the Report of Major Yowell, the American relief worker in the Near East and the director of the Kharput unit, in which he describes the treatment of the Christians by the Turks in the Kharput district; whether he has any official information showing that out of 30,000 Greek deportees 5,000 died before reaching Kharput, and another 5,000 died at Kharput or to the west thereof, the children of the dying deportees being left without assistance, and the women and girl refugees being taken by the Turks to use for their own purposes; and whether effective means will at once be taken by the Allies to protect the Christian minorities in Turkey?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have seen the account referred to, and His Majesty's High Commissioner at Constantinople has
been instructed to furnish a Report on the subject. All the information in the possession of His Majesty's Government is, in general, corroborative of the truth of Major Yowell's statements. The Allies are, unfortunately, not at present in a position to take any effective measures to protect the minorities in territory under Kemalist control, but guarantees for the safety of all minorities form an integral part of the peace settlement which they have proposed.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPIRE DAY.

Colonel NEWMAN: 61.
asked the Minister of Health whether a general scheme for the observance of Empire Day has been arranged for by the various local authorities in England and Wales; and, if so, does the scheme include a general observance of Empire Day in the State-provided schools of the country and the hoisting of the Union Jack on every public building?

Sir A. MOND: I have no doubt that the Various local authorities will take such steps as they consider appropriate for the observance of Empire Day, but I am not aware that any general scheme has been arranged by them.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

DUBLIN METROPOLITAN POLICE (S. WILLIAMS).

Sir MAURICE DOCKRELL: 64.
asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he is aware that Samuel Williams obtained permission to retire on pension from the Dublin Metropolitan Police in April, 1917, for service in France, and served with the colours until May, 1920, and when he retired in 1917 had completed 32 years of police service, only requiring two years of further police service to qualify him for a pension of £3 4s. per week, instead of the pension of £l 2s. 8d. per week which is now being paid him; and is it possible to regard his military service as supplemental to his police service, and entitling him to the higher pension which is given for 34 years' police service?

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Sir Hamar Greenwood): This ex-constable applied for and was
granted permission in April, 1917, to retire on pension in order to go to France and take up certain Government labour employment. He had then 32 years' service and was discharged on the maximum pension payable in his case. In view of the fact that he ceased to be a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police before joining His Majesty's Forces, there would appear to be no legal power to regard his military service as supplemental to his police service for purposes of pension.

Sir M. DOCKRELL: Was not this poor man encouraged to join the forces, and why is he then to be treated in this shabby way?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Members, both of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and of the Royal Irish Constabulary, were asked to join, and did join in large numbers. Their service was a continuing one. This man asked for retirement, not for continuing service.

Sir M. DOCKRELL: Was it not for further service?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: That I do not know; but I know he asked for leave to retire.

Sir M. DOCKRELL: The right hon. Gentleman might kindly inquire and see what he can do for him?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I regret that there is no legal power to grant him the pension he would have received had he had continuous service in cither the police or the military forces. I regret that I have no power.

Sir M. DOCKRELL: You have the power.

MALICIOUS INJURIES (CLAIMS).

Colonel NEWMAN: 72.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a British subject domiciled in the Irish Free State who desires the assistance of his Government where injured in person or property should make his application to the Colonial Office or to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, as the representative of the Crown in the Irish Free State?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: A British subject domiciled in the Free State, who desires the assistance of his Government, should make application to the appropriate Department of that Govern-
ment as soon as it is established; meanwhile any such application should be addressed to the Provisional Government. Every British subject who fails to obtain redress from the Government, whether of the United Kingdom or of a Dominion, has a common law right of petition to the King. In the case under consideration, any such petition should be addressed to His Majesty, either direct or through the Colonial Office.

Colonel NEWMAN: In the case of a British subject injured in Mexico, surely he can make an application to our Foreign Office to get redress? In this case it would not be the Foreign Office, and would it not be the Colonial Office?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am not dealing with the Foreign Office or subjects of the Crown in foreign countries. Thi6 question refers to the Dominions presenting a petition of right from the Dominions to or through the Colonial Office.

Sir W. DAVISON: When the Dominion Government or the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland informs the man who applies for protection that they are unable to afford it, what is the man to do?

Lieut.-Colonel WHELER: When they make an application, are they getting any help or are they getting nothing?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The Provisional Government—under the greatest difficulty, I agree—is doing everything it can to protect the citizens of Southern Ireland. Unfortunately, in many parts of Ireland they are not able to do so.

Sir W. DAVISON: What is a man to do—

Mr. SPEAKER: Order, order!

POSTAL ORDERS.

Sir F. HALL: 81.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the instruction he has issued to the effect that postal orders overstamped with the Irish Free State stamp are not to be honoured anywhere outside Southern Ireland is causing hardship and inconvenience to traders and others in this country; and if he will state why this step has been taken in view of the fact that no altera-
tion has yet been made in the constitutional status of Southern Ireland?

Mr. PEASE: No such instruction has been issued. Overprinted postal orders issued by the Post Office of the Irish Free State are payable wherever ordinary British postal orders are payable.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR GRATUITIES (AUSTRALIAN FORCES).

Lieut.-Colonel NALL: 65.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the War gratuities of men domiciled in Great Britain who served in the Australian Commonwealth forces are in part retained in the form of interest-bearing bonds; and whether the men concerned are entitled to claim encashment of the bonds?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Edward Wood): I am informed that this matter is governed by the War Gratuity Act, 1920, of the Commonwealth of Australia, to which I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend. It may be of convenience to him if I send him a copy with this answer of the pertinent Section of the Act referred to.

Lieut.-Colonel NALL: Would my hon. Friend bring some pressure to bear on the Colonial Governments in this matter?

Mr. WOOD: I think I should be glad if my hon. and gallant Friend would first consult the Act; after that, if he sees fit to make further representations, well and good.

Oral Answers to Questions — SIERRA LEONE.

Mr. RAFFAN: 70.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to complaints that unprovoked assaults have recently been made upon citizens in Sierra Leone by British military officers; and, seeing that this has tended to create unrest and discontent among the native section of the community, will he make inquiry into the matter, with a view to appropriate action being taken if the complaints prove to be well founded?

Mr. WOOD: My attention has not been called to any such incidents, but I will ask the Governor to furnish me with a report on the allegations.

Oral Answers to Questions — CATTLE (TREATMENT IN TRANSIT).

Sir ROBERT NEWMAN: 74.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the sufferings which cattle undergo in their transit from Canada and other countries for slaughter at British ports; whether, in view of these cruelties, he will direct his inspectors to investigate and report upon the present condition of the traffic; and, in the event of these reports confirming the allegations of cruelty, will he take measures, in cooperation with the Canadian Government and Governments of other countries concerned, to end these cruelties?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Every possible precaution is taken to safeguard cattle sent across the Atlantic to this country. Provisions are contained in the Foreign Animals Order of 1910 issued by the Ministry for the protection of animals on the voyage, and I understand that the vessels also have to pass Regulations laid down by the Governments of the exporting countries. Reports are made by the Ministry's inspectors as to the conditions of the animals on arrival in this country. There is no evidence of cruelty, but from the nature of the case a certain amount of suffering is unavoidable when prolonged heavy weather is experienced. The number of casualties since the resumption of the traffic early last year has been small, but there was one serious case in September last when 57 cattle out of 285 on board were lost in the North Atlantic in a very heavy and prolonged gale.

Mr. STURROCK: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, before the Canadian cattle embargo was imposed shiploads of cattle used to be put ashore in Scotland without any evidence whatever of their having suffered any hardship; and is he further aware that in several cases not only did the number of cattle which left Montreal arrive at a port of destination in Scotland, but even more appeared on the voyage?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is giving information.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN CONTRACTS.

Sir ROBERT CLOUGH: 76.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he has received any information tending to show
the loss or threatened loss, owing to the persistence of industrial unrest, of foreign contracts placed in this country; and whether trade in other countries is subject to the same measure of embarrassment in this respect as our own?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson): I have been asked to reply. My hon. Friend's attention has not recently been called to any particular orders which have been lost by British firms for the reason stated by my hon. Friend, but it is obvious that industrial unrest must have a prejudicial effect upon the placing of foreign contracts in this country. Trade in other countries suffers from the same embarrassment, sometimes in a greater and sometimes in a lesser degree, but it is impossible to institute any precise comparison.

Mr. J. DAVISON: Can the hon. Gentleman state who is responsible for industrial unrest to-day?

Oral Answers to Questions — NEWSPAPER POSTAGE.

Sir ALFRED YEO: 80.
asked the Postmaster-General if he is making any concession to British monthly trade newspapers, seeing that their foreign competitors can still come into this country at a halfpenny, whilst the British trade paper has a minimum of one penny, and that the foreigner is allowed four ounces for one penny, but our own publishers are only allowed two ounces for one penny?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): The newspaper rate of postage is confined by Statute to journals published at intervals of not more than seven days. My right hon. Friend cannot undertake to propose legislation extending it to monthly newspapers. Such an extension could not be restricted to trade journals, and would involve a considerable sacrifice of revenue on a post which is, and always has been, carried on at a loss.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC TRUSTEE OFFICE.

Major HILLS: 83.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why other work was found in the Public Trustee Office for the lower clerical men in that Department when their own work was redundant
owing to re-organisation, whereas the lower clerical women, in similar circumstances, were turned out of the Department; and why, in view of the fact that the men and women were working side by side in the same sections, it was not decided to declare the clerks redundant according to the length of their service, and not according to their sex?

Mr. YOUNG: As part of the reorganisation referred to in the question, a particular section was discontinued, and part of its work transferred to other sections. In determining which of the staff of the disbanded section should be retained, all relevant factors, including length of service, were taken into account, but the governing consideration was necessarily whether a suitable post was available for the individual in the remaining sections.

Mr. RENDALL: Was the most important and relevant fact taken into consideration, namely, the fact that the Public Trustee preferred to have men on his staff rather than women, and that therefore women are treated unfairly?

Mr. YOUNG: No, Sir; there is no foundation for that suggestion at all.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED SERVICES FUND.

Sir C. YATE: 84.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether the inquiries as to the funds available for the settlement of the balance due from the Expeditionary Force Canteens and Navy and Army Canteen Board to the United Services Fund are now concluded; and, if so, what is the amount available, and when will it be paid over to the United Services Fund?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Lieut.-Colonel Sir R. Sanders): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, and the second part, therefore, does not arise.

Lieut.-Colonel WHELER: What is the reason for this continued delay, which has been going on for a very long time, and the funds are Very badly wanted? Will the Report be expedited?

Sir R. SANDERS: The reason for the delay is that it is an exceedingly complicated matter, and those concerned are making every effort to get out the Report as soon as possible.

Sir C. YATE: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman give us any date?

Sir R. SANDERS: I am afraid that would be very rash.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

RETAINED ARMY OFFICERS.

Sir C. YATE: 85.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the views of the Government of India have now been received on the question of the adjustment of the pay and pensions of those officers of the Indian Army who were retained in the Army on account of the War beyond the date on which they became due to be placed on the retired list; and, if not, when he expects to be able to make a statement on the subject?

Earl WINTERTON: A reminder was sent to the Government of India on this subject on 8th April, and on 20th April they replied that it was still under consideration, and that an answer would be sent as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATURALISATION (MR. B. SCHLEIFSTEIN).

Mr. KILEY: 86.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is prepared to give consideration to the application of Mr. Bernard Schleif-stein, who applied for naturalisation in the year 1914, seeing that he has resided in this country for over 20 years, is a married man with a family, and is desirous that he and his children shall become British subjects; and, if he is not prepared to give the matter consideration now, whether he can hold out any hope that the application will be considered during the next 12 months?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): I regret that I cannot make any definite promise to the effect of either of the hon. Member's suggestions.

Mr. KILEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the reason why it takes seven years to consider an application? Should it not be either dealt with or dismissed?

Mr. SHORTT: Several of those years were years of War, when nothing was being done.

Oral Answers to Questions — DURHAM CATHEDRAL.

Colonel NEWMAN: 87.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that on the 30th ultimo a large body of men sought entrance to Durham Cathedral during divine service, and that, owing to their large numbers, they were unable to gain admittance, but went to St. James's Church, where they sang the Red Flag in spite of the remonstrance of the vicar; and what steps does he intend to take to prevent a further occurrence of such scenes?

Mr. SHORTT: Until I read the hon. and gallant Member's question, I had heard nothing of the incidents referred to. I am making inquiries.

Oral Answers to Questions — SURPLUS WAR STORES.

Mr. FOOT: 88.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total sum realised since the Armistice from the sale of War stores?

Sir W. DAVISON: 105.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total cash value of War assets, including wheat and other food supplies, which have been realised since the Armistice and carried to current account in relief of taxation; and what is the estimated total value of War assets still to be realised?

Mr. YOUNG: I propose to issue a return giving, as far as possible, the information asked for in these questions.

Oral Answers to Questions — BUDGET.

INDUSTRIAL TROUBLE.

Sir ROBERT CLOUGH: 89.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether in compiling the Budget he took into special consideration any exceptional estimate of national unemployment; and whether it will be necessary to review the position of the nation's finance if the existing industrial unrest continues?

Mr. YOUNG: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has endeavoured to frame his Budget Estimates on a sober survey of the existing trend of trade and employment. Any serious extension of industrial trouble would, naturally, have serious effects on the financial position of the country.

AMENITY LANDS.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 94.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the approximate total acreage of what he calls amenity lands, which are to be subject to assessment under Schedule B at only one-third of their annual value; and what is the approximate average annual value per acre as assessed under Schedule A of those lands?

Mr. YOUNG: The approximate annual value, as assessed under Schedule A, of lands in Great Britain and Northern Ireland not occupied solely or mainly for purposes of husbandry, which it is now proposed to charge under Schedule B at one-third of their annual value, is £1,750,000. I regret I have no particulars of the acreage of these lands.

MISCELLANEOUS SPECIAL RECEIPTS.

Mr. BANTON: 96.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the details of the miscellaneous special receipts, amounting to £90,000,000, estimated to be received in the year to 31st March, 1923; and what are the actual comparative figures for the year to 31st March, 1922?

Mr. YOUNG: For the details in 1921–22 I would refer the hon. Member to the annual Finance Accounts, which will be issued in due course. Apart from £45,000,000 representing Disposals and Shipping Receipts, the remaining total is spread over a large number of small items similar in character to those shown in the Finance Accounts of previous years.

NATIONAL DEBT.

Mr. BANTON: 97.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the full details composing the amount of the National Debt at 31st March, 1922, specifying separately each class of Exchequer Bonds, National War Bonds, War Loan, Consols, and other loans, annuities, etc., and giving details of all the other liabilities in respect of the national indebtedness, together with the comparative figures as at 31st March, 1921, and full details as to money raised and debt repaid, including issues of stock by way of conversion during the year to 31st March, 1922?

Mr. YOUNG: These details will be found in the Finance Accounts for the year 1920–21 and the year 1921–22, which will be published in due course.

CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES.

Captain BOWYER: 90.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, seeing that the co-operative movement in the country is paying an unequal share towards taxation, he will, to the extent of such inequality, secure by fresh taxation on co-operative societies, but without re-imposing Income Tax or Corporation Tax, that these societies do not get any preferential treatment over other companies in the task of contributing to the taxation of the country?

Mr. YOUNG: I cannot, within the limits of a Parliamentary answer, deal with the implications contained in the first part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question. In view of the discussions and decisions in this House last year, I do not think anything would be gained by reopening the matter at the present time.

Captain BOWYER: Is it not the case that private enterprise and private traders are working at a disadvantage when compared with the co-operative movement?

Mr. YOUNG: I think that is a matter of opinion and argument.

Captain BOWYER: Is it not a matter which can be tested by the figures of the annual trading done?

Mr. YOUNG: The consideration of such figures would no doubt be relevant to the formation of an opinion.

TEA DUTY.

Captain BOWYER: 100.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the false position in which all sellers of tea are placed in view of their only having 3⅓d. allowed them with which to carry out a reduction of 4d. to the consumer; and will he reduce the Tea Tax by 4d. on all teas, wherever grown or, alternatively, if he cannot manage this, will he cause it to be publicly announced that the reduction to be expected by the consumer is 3⅓d. only?

Mr. YOUNG: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow (Mr. G. Murray) on the 8th May.

Oral Answers to Questions — STOCK EXCHANGE (INTEREST CHARGES).

Mr. KILEY: 90.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Stock Exchange Committee are allowing their members to charge the public on pre-War carry-over 9 per cent, interest, notwithstanding the reduction of the deposit rate to 2½ per cent.; and that the committee promised the Government in 1914 that members of the Stock Exchange would hand on to their clients any advantage that a reduced rate of interest by the joint stock banks might give them, and whether the Government intend to take any action in this matter?

Mr. YOUNG: This is a matter for the Committee of the Stock Exchange, in which I do not propose to intervene.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOANS, ALLIES AND DOMINIONS.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 95.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the loans to Allies and Dominions, amounting as at 31st March, 1922, to £2,017,461, are all repayable in the United Kingdom sterling or whether any are repayable in the currency of the nations to whom the loans were lent; and, if so, in what currencies?

Mr. YOUNG: The loans to Allies and Dominions are all repayable in sterling, with the exception of an amount of $16,974,000 due from Austria in respect of relief supplies and an amount of $37,227,602.36 due from France, which are repayable in United States dollars. In the Financial Statement these sums are converted into sterling at par.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENTERTAINMENTS DUTY.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: 104.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the collection of Entertainments Duty at two theatres within the London area, within the last 12 months, at the King's, Hammersmith and the Wimbledon Theatres, has involved the presentation by, and at the expense of, the management of these two places of entertainment of 1,500 separate documents to the collectors of taxes, and that these documents have involved no less I than 4,600 signatures and 125,000 separate
clerical entries; and whether he is able to give the numbers and emoluments of the Government staffs employed in collecting and checking the data provided by these two theatres alone?

Mr. YOUNG: Entertainments Duty at the two theatres in question is collected on the basis of a return of payments for admission to each performance, a method of payment adopted at the proprietor's request as an alternative to the use of Government stamps and tickets, to which it is open to him to revert. I may add that this system of payment on returns was instituted as the result of strong pressure by the trade when the duty was introduced. I am unable to check the accuracy of the figures mentioned, but I am informed that the average cost of examining returns furnished in respect of London houses is well under £10 a year per house.

IRELAND.

KIDNAPPED BRITISH OFFICERS.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: 69.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can now inform the House whether the three British officers who were kidnapped in Southern Ireland about a fortnight ago are still in captivity; and what action the British Government intend to take if the Provisional Government are unable to secure their immediate release?

Mr. RUPERT GWYNNE: 71.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the names and regiments of the three officers who were recently kidnapped near Macroom; and if he has yet any information concerning them?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I regret that I have as yet received no further information regarding this matter. The military authorities are of opinion that in the interests of the officers concerned it would be undesirable at the present moment to publish their names.

Mr. GWYNNE: What step is the right hon. Gentleman taking to get their release?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I answered that question a few moments ago. Every possible step has been taken, both here
and by military authorities in Ireland to find out where these officers are.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously inform the House of Commons that the Government are sitting down and allowing British officers to be kidnapped without anything tangible being done to secure their release?

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: What sources of information have the Government as to what is going on in Southern Ireland—

Viscount CURZON: None.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: Have they any source of information other than the Provisional Government; if so, is it not time they turned to some other source?

Viscount CURZON: They do not care!

Sir W. DAVISON: Is it not now nearly a fortnight since these officers were kidnapped—[An HON. MEMBER: "Three weeks!"]—yes, nearly three weeks, and is the British Government not going to take some steps to inform the House of Commons of the steps they are taking?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: They are taking exactly the steps in regard to the kidnapped officers that I have given in my main answer. General Sir Nevil Macready, the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, is, I know, taking every possible step to find out where these kidnapped officers now are. It would be impossible for me to give details; but I shall put the questions of hon. Members before the Commander-in-Chief. So far as the British Government is concerned, we are pressing upon the Provisional Government that the matter is one of anxiety in the House.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is there any Intelligence Department in Southern Ireland that would enable the criminals to be tracked and apprehended?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: There is no Intelligence Department in Southern Ireland nor in any of the Dominions.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: Do British officers now go about armed when they are outside barracks; if not, how can they be expected to protect themselves if the Government cannot protect them?

MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.

At the end of Questions—

Mr. GWYNNE: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "the failure of the Government to take adequate steps to secure the release of three British officers who have been kidnapped in Ireland, and who are in imminent danger of losing their lives."

Mr. SPEAKER: The trouble that I find with this Motion is that the hon. Member does not indicate what steps he thinks the Government ought to take, and, therefore, it is impossible for me to judge whether those steps are within the present powers of the Government. I think the Motion fails on that ground of indefiniteness. If the hon. Member can show me that there has been some lapse on the part of the Government within their powers, without repealing the Statute passed last March, I will consider a Motion of this kind.

Mr. GWYNNE: We have been told this afternoon by the Chief Secretary that we have still the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Ireland, and I suggest that it would be out of place for me to suggest what steps he should take until the Government tell us what steps they are taking. I put it, further, to you, Sir, that a great responsibility rests on this House if it rejects this Motion. We have had examples already of men who have been kidnapped and whose lives have been taken in consequence. This has been going on from day to day, and I think the House has given the Government full time to give some explanation or proof that they are taking some definite steps. So far we have had no information that any steps have been taken beyond bringing the matter to the notice of the Provisional Government. It is to emphasise the protest that I wish to move the Adjournment of the House.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: On that point of Order. May I submit for your consideration that if the Government, for their own purposes or for the purposes of the nation, have troops stationed anywhere, it is the duty of the Government to protect those officers and men, and that it is not the duty of a private Member to tell the Government how they
should protect those officers and men whom the Government have stationed there?

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: On that point of Order. Are there not numerous precedents for the moving of the Adjournment of the House being allowed for the purpose of calling attention to the neglect of the Government in some particular, without specifying what the duty of the Government is? Is it not the whole purpose of the Debate on the Motion for the Adjournment to explain what the neglect complained of may be I Surely it would be contrary to all precedent to set out, in the notice asking for leave, the exact policy which the House may call upon the Government to pursue?

Lord ROBERT CECIL: May I respectfully submit to you that if this incident— I know nothing about it except what has passed in this House—had taken place in a foreign country, it would have been clearly in order to have called the attention of the House to it, and, if necessary, for the House to have availed itself of its power under Standing Order Mo. 10, which, after all, does not indicate in any part of it that it is necessary to tell the Government exactly what they ought to do, but merely gives the House the right to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance?

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think the point of a foreign country is necessarily parallel with this case, but the fact that these are British officers in the pay of this House entitles the House to inquire into the matter. I therefore put the Motion to the House.

The pleasure of the House having been signified, the Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 10, until a quarter-past Eight this evening.

VIVISECTION EXPERIMENTS.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I beg to move,
That leave be given to introduce a Bill to prevent the application of public money to vivisection experiments.
This is a Bill which I claim is a practical attempt at economy, and its object is to prevent the spending of public
money on vivisection experiments. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent vivisection experiments being continued at the hands of any learned societies or others who provide the money, but in these times I do not think it is right that public money should be granted for this purpose, especially as it must come in part from persons who have scruples against vivisection. The sum of money, I believe, is substantial, though I have not been been able to get the actual figures. Before the War the amount of money spent on medical research was round about £60,000 a year. It is now over £120,000, of which a considerable sum, I understand, is spent on these experiments. I believe the figures are round about £30,000 or £40,000. I think that is money which could well be saved at the present time, and I hope I shall have the support of the House in introducing this very simple and very short Bill. There is talk of more money being demanded for these experiments, and the salaries which are being paid to the researchers, all of whom, of course, are not employed in vivisection, though a good many are, come alone to £38,000 a year. That is a very substantial amount, and I believe it could be saved without any harm to the body politic. It will not prevent a single vivisection experiment which is necessary because the learned societies who think it is necessary will undoubtedly be able to supply the funds to enable the experiments to be carried on.

Dr. MURRAY: I do not know whether it is a breach of the traditions of the House, but I do not know that there is much harm in mentioning the fact that my hon. and gallant Friend told me before I came into the House that he would not like me to be here at a quarter to four o'clock. He usually likes a large audience when he is speaking and I thought there was something suspicious in the suggestion so I inquired and discovered that he was going to attempt to introduce this Bill. In a sense I am very glad that he has introduced it. I am always so impressed with his almost unchallengeable wisdom upon every other subject that I am glad to discover that he is human after all and sometimes he is wrong upon public questions of this sort. It is comforting for the ordinary Member who
sometimes makes mistakes in public policy to know that my hon. and gallant Friend, like Homer, occasionally nods too. This is a really flank attack upon experimental research. I should have expected a frontal attack judging from my hon. and gallant Friend's usual methods. It would have been more frank and candid if he had introduced a Bill abolishing all experimental research of this kind. I dislike the word vivisection and prefer experimental research. My hon. and gallant Friend gave as his principal reason that there conscientious objectors to experimental research and therefore they should not be taxed for experimental research of that sort. I did not discover that he brought in a Bill to prevent any public money being wasted upon the Navy or the Army because there are conscientious objectors who will be taxed for, as they say, killing other people. The position is quite the same. If he would like to be consistent he ought also to have included in his Bill that no public money should be spent upon the Army or upon the Navy. He did not discuss the merits of experimental research. There are two or three reasons which I should like to give why public money of all monies should be spent upon experimental research. Vivisection, as it is called, has been the means of advancing medical research within the last 30 or 40 years to an extraordinary degree. There is, for instance, the surgery of the brain. You cannot experiment upon the human brain. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] I did hear of an Englishman who suggested that a surgical operation should be made upon a Scotsman's head under certain conditions, but although the suggestion has been made the experiment has never been carried out and therefore no Scotsman has ever got a glimmer of a sense of humour. But since research experiments have been made in the matter of the brain, some people suggest that Scotsmen have acquired a sense of humour. I do not know whether it is due to those experiments or not. Experiments upon animals have been the cause of a big progress in research of the brain, and that was of great use in the late War and saved thousands of lives. It is therefore a cause for which public money should be spent and spent much more liberally than it is at the present time. Take the case of diphtheria. How many lives have been saved by the
knowledge gained by experiments in connection with anti-toxin? Surely that is an object for the spending of public money. One of the most recent advances in medical science has been due to experimental research in connection with the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. Without these experiments progress could not have been made, and in cases of shock after wounds in the War thousands of lives were saved. In another department, with which this House always shows sympathy, namely, obstetrics and women in labour, a series of experiments has saved more lives of women and children in one of the biggest crises of their lives than any other thing I know.

Mr. STANTON: Give us proof.

Dr. MURRAY: I am just giving these three examples as having been of great benefit to this country, to the world, and to humanity.

Mr. STANTON: Question.

Dr. MURRAY: I cannot conceive any object on which public money could be better spent than in the promotion of experimental research. Therefore, I object to this Bill being introduced.

Question put, "That leave be given to bring in the Bill to prevent the application of public money to vivisection experiments."

The House divided: Ayes, 102; Noes, 170.

Division No. 101.]
AYES.
[4.5 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Halls, Walter
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Hancock, John George
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Hartshorn, Vernon
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)


Banton, George
Hayday, Arthur
Rose, Frank H.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Henderson, Major V. L. (Tradeston)
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)
Sitch, Charles H.


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank
Smith, W. R. (Wellingborough)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Hirst, G. H.
Spencer, George A.


Bethell, Sir John Henry
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Stanton, Charles Butt


Betterton, Henry B.
Holmes, J. Stanley
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. A. (Midlothian)
Surtees, Brigadier-General H. C.


Breese, Major Charles E.
Howard, Major S. G.
Sutton, John Edward


Briggs, Harold
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Bromfield, William
Johnstone, Joseph
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Burn, Col. C. R. (Devon, Torquay)
Kenyon, Barnet
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Cape, Thomas
Kiley, James Daniel
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Carr, W. Theodore
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Townshend, Sir Charles Vere Ferrers


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lawson, John James
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Lindsay, William Arthur
Walton, J. (York, W. R. Don Valley)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughtan)
Lunn, William
Watts-Morgan, Lieut.-Col. D.


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
McMicking, Major Gilbert
Wedgwood, Colonel Joslah C.


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Macquisten, F. A.
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Wignall, James


Finney, Samuel
Mills, John Edmund
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Foot, Isaac
Morris, Richard
Wilson, Capt. A. S. (Holderness)


Frece, Sir Walter de
Murray, Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Gilbert, James Daniel
Myers, Thomas
Windsor, Viscount


Glyn, Major Ralph
Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)
Wintringham, Margaret


Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark
Wise, Frederick


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Raffan, Peter Wilson



Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Ratcliffe, Henry Butler
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)
Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy and Major C. Lowther.


Hallas, Eldred
Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir p. (Chertsey)



NOES.


Amery, Leopold C. M. S.
Brassey, H. L. C.
Cope. Major William


Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Brown, Major D. C.
Craig, Capt. C. C. (Antrim, South)


Armstrong, Henry Bruce
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry


Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.
Bruton, Sir James
Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page


Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry
Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.
Davidson, J. C. C.(Hemel Hempstead)


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Cairns, John
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)


Barnston, Major Harry
Carter, R. A. D. (Man., Withington)
Dean, Commander P. T.


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Casey, T. W.
Dewhurst, Lieut.-Commander Harry


Beauchamp, Sir Edward
Cautley, Henry Strother
Doyle, N. Grattan


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchlnl
Du Pre, Colonel William Baring


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Lady wood)
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)


Bigland, Alfred
Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H. Spender
Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)


Bird, Sir William B. M. (Chichester)
Clough, Sir Robert
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith


Blair, Sir Reginald
Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Kelley, Major Fred (Rotherham)
Remer, J. R.


Fell, Sir Arthur
Kennedy, Thomas
Remnant, Sir James


Flannery. Sir James Fortescue
Lane-Fox, G. R.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Ford, Patrick Johnston
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Rodger, A. K.


Forrest, Walter
Lister, Sir R. Ashton
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Lloyd, George Butler
Royce, William Stapleton


Galbraith, Samuel
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tingd'n)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Gange, E. Stanley
Lowe, Sir Francis William
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Norwood)


Gardner, Ernest
M'Connell, Thomas Edward
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur


Gee, Captain Robert
McLaren, Robert (Lanark, Northern)
Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)


Gillis, William
Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)
Seager, Sir William


Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)
Sharman-Crawford, Robert G.


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Malone, C. L. (Leyton, E.)
Shaw, William T. (Forfar)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Sir Hamar
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S)
Smith, Sir Maicolm (Orkney)


Greig, Colonel Sir James William
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander


Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Matthews, David
Steel, Major S. Strang


Gwynne, Rupert S.
Middlebrook, Sir William
Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.


Hallwood, Augustine
Mildmay, Colonel Rt. Hon. F. B.
Stewart, Gershom


Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Moles, Thomas
Sturrock, J. Leng


Hall, Rr-Adml Sir W. (Liv'p'l.W.D'by)
Molson, Major John Elsdale
Taylor, J.


Hambro, Angus Valdemar
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Terrell, George (Wilts, Chippenham)


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Thorpe, Captain John Henry


Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.
Tickler, Thomas George


Haslam, Lewis
Mosley, Oswald
Townley, Maximilian G.


Hills. Major John Waller
Murchison, C. K.
Tryon, Major George Clement


Hinds, John
Murray, Hon. Gideon (St. Rollox)
Turton, Edmund Russborough


Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.
Murray, John (Leeds, West)
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Nail, Major Joseph
Watson, Captain John Bertrand


Hopkins, John W. W.
Neal, Arthur
Weston, Colonel John Wakefield


Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)


Home, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)
Nield, Sir Herbert
Willey, Lieut.-Colonel F. V.


Hudson, R. M.
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.
Williams, Lt.-Col. Sir R. (Banbury)


Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
O'Connor, Thomas P.
Wilson. Field-Marshal Sir Henry


Hurd, Percy A.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Winterton, Earl


Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.
Pilditch, Sir Philip
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Jephcott, A. R.
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.
Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)


Jesson, C.
Raeburn, Sir William H.



Jodrell, Neville Paul
Randies, Sir John Scurrah
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Rees, Capt. J. Tudor- (Barnstaple)
Dr. Murray and Sir P. Magnus.


Question put, and agreed to.

BILLS REPORTED.

Stoke-on-Trent Corporation (Gas Consolidation Bill) [Lords],

Trafford Park Bill [Lords],

Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

London County Council (Tramways, Trolley Vehicles, and Improvements) Bill (changed to "London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill"),

Reported, with Amendments [Title amended]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

NEW MEMBER SWORN,

Sir JOHN LEIGH, Baronet, for Borough of Wandsworth (Clapham Division).

Orders of the Day — REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (No. 2) BILL.

CONSTABULARY (IRELAND) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Sir Hamar Greenwood): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
I must say that I move the Second Reading of this Bill, which makes provision for the disbandment of the historic force of the Royal Irish Constabulary, one of the oldest and certainly one of the finest police forces in the world, with profound regret. Its disbandment will be a great loss to Ireland, but it is inevitable. It is consequential upon the Treaty with the representatives of Southern Ireland, and, in addition, its disbandment is urged unanimously by the police force itself. It was the unanimous view of these gallant Irishmen, expressed in a single sentence, namely, that as an Imperial force they were born, and as an Imperial force they wished to die. I am informed that a considerable number of the force will re-enlist in the new Royal Ulster Constabulary. In that new force they will maintain and continue the traditions of the old force. The House will remember that the Royal Irish Constabulary was established by Lord Melbourne's Government in 1836, and it is interesting to note that it was supported in its establishment by Daniel 0'Con.nell. The force originally consisted of approximately 7,000 men of all ranks. By 1848 it had increased to 10,000, and afterwards it averaged just over 11,000 for more than 60 years. In the troublous times of 1887 its strength increased to over 12,000. The highest total in its history was in 1921, when the regular force numbered 12,902. I would also remind the House that in 1920 the Auxiliary Division of ex-officers was started, and subsequently two other temporary divisions, namely, the Veterans Division of ex-service men and a Transport Division to take charge of motor transport. These Divisions were tem-
porary, but are included in the Bill now before the House. The maximum strength of the force, to which the Bill refers, at its highest moment on 11th July, 1921, was 12,902 Regulars and 3,052 temporary police. The House will remember that the Treaty was signed on 6th December last. Preparations for the disband ment of the force were at once made. The disbandment of the Auxiliaries, the Veterans and the Transport Division has already been completed with the exception of a few minor details. The disbandment of the regular Royal Irish Constabulary commenced at the end of March and the numbers of that force at present are as follows. In Northern Ireland, 2,130: in Southern Ireland, 1,982. There are no policemen under the control of this House doing duty in Southern Ireland at the present time. These 1,982 in Southern Ireland are concentrated in four camps, and are being disbanded from day to day.
I must now express my regret that it was not possible to ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading before disbandment commenced. The policy of disbandment was contemplated and provided for by Article 10 of the Treaty. The terms on which the Irish police are being disbanded have been before the House, for some time. I have myself many times met representatives of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who have always urged the disbandment of that force at the earliest possible date.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: Will the right lion. Gentleman say how many have been disbanded up to the present?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I cannot bind myself to the exact figures, but from memory I can say that 1,500 Auxiliaries have been disbanded, and approximately 4,000 recruits of the regular R.I.C. from Great Britain, 500 transport drivers and mechanics, and some 800 old soldiers, called veterans, who were engaged on fatigue, orderly, and barrack duties. That leaves a permanent force of about 8,000, and they have all been disbanded except 4,212, almost equally divided between the North and the South. As the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. R. McNeill) knows, the Royal Irish Constabulary in Northern Ireland was placed under the control of the Northern Government on 22nd November last. It has been under the control of that Government ever since. The Bill introduces, so far as I
know, a new term in the vocabulary of pensions, namely, the term "compensation allowance." That term is introduced in reference to all police who have been disbanded from the regular forces since 25th January of this year. The term "compensation allowance" has been brought into the Bill because all those police to which I referred are disbanded on the terms, as I shall explain later in greater detail, laid down by the Act of 1920. Those terms were that every policeman would have added to his term of service 12 years in the event of his services being dispensed with, and on that added term of service of 12 years, plus all the increments which would have accrued if he had served that extra 12 years, his pension would be struck. Therefore, when we speak of "pensions" of the Royal Irish Constabulary, we mean the pensions of the policemen who left before disbandment. When we speak of "compensation allowance"' we refer to the allowance granted to those policemen under the Act of 1920 on their disbandment, and which, to some extent, is compensation for their loss of office.
Under Article 10 of the Treaty it is contemplated that all the Irish Royal Irish Constabulary will have their pensions paid ultimately by the Free State Government. His Majesty's Government, however, has not only guaranteed the payment of all pensions and compensation allowances, but has actually taken over the administration and payment of all pensions and compensation allowances under this Bill or any preceding Act that applies. This is to guarantee these Irish policemen and all other policemen, whether recruited in Ireland or elsewhere, a strict and immediate payment of that which is due to them and to relieve many of them of certain anxieties. Under the Bill the Treasury will administer the pensions and compensation allowances hitherto administered by the Inspector-General or by the Lord Lieutenant acting under the advice of the Chief Secretary.
The Bill itself is divided into two main parts. The first is an important part dealing with the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary and those temporary forces attached to it. The second part deals with the transfer of
resident magistrates to the Northern Irish Government. Let me just clear the latter point out of the way, because it is a minor though important point. Under Clause 2 of the Bill, the Resident Magistrates now functioning in Northern Ireland are transferred to the Northern Government. After the passing of this Bill, the Northern Government alone will be responsible for the appointment, the pensions and the salaries of Resident Magistrates in their area. This completes the final transfer to the Northern Government of all matters connected with the administration of law as contemplated by the Act of 1920. The Resident Magistrates in Southern Ireland were transferred by the Order in Council of 1st April last, which was laid on the Table of the House and which followed the passing of the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act. They are now paid by the Provisional Government, and are responsible only to the Provisional Government. Of course, if they are removed or in any way affected by the transfer, they come under Article 10 of the Treaty, which specifically provides for officers of the police, Resident Magistrates, and so on.
The Bill is, I regret, largely made up of reference. These Bills, however, are drawn by the very skilled draftsmen connected with each Government Department. With the permission of the House I will go in detail through the different portions of the Bill. Clause 1 refers to the last day on which disbandment may take place. On that point I am bound to say that disbandment is proceeding slowly, for the very obvious reason that we do not wish to disband men in Southern Ireland unless we have an assurance that their lives will be safe, or unless, in places where their lives are threatened, we have accommodation in Ireland or Great Britain to which they can immediately go.

Sir JAMES REMNANT: It is rather late in the day to find that out.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: It has always been the policy of the Government.

Sir J. REMNANT: You have not carried it out.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: There has been and there is to-day a great deal of criticism about the treatment of the Royal Irish Constabulary, but I hope I can
show that the Government has done everything humanly possible to look after the well being of these Irish policemen. The second part of Clause 1 sets out the governing principle of the Bill, namely, the terms of the Act of 1920 on which these compensation allowances are based. In the third and last part, the Treasury takes power to grant pensions and gratuities to widows and children of the pensioners of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Sub-section (2) of Clause 1 applies in part the Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions Order of 1922, which was laid on the Table of the House. This Pensions Order is a very lengthy document, and we had a Debate upon it some time ago, in which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) pointed out some defects, which I am glad to say that I told him I would not delay in remedying, and I hope he will be satisfied with the amended Order soon to be laid on the Table of the House. These Orders can always be amended, and I hope that hon. Members will diligently study them to see that the wishes of everyone, including the Government, are met in dealing with this force.
The provisions of the Pensions Order, under Articles 15 and 16, are helpful to the police. I would, however, point out frankly that in Article 17 there is some restriction put upon the enjoyment of compensation allowances and pensions if the police enter certain Government employ. That is a debatable point, but it is a long established principle acted on by this House for many years, that if a man receives a pension from public funds and is again employed in a public office as defined by certain Acts or in a police force in the case of a policeman, he should not receive the pay of his rank and also in full the pension he has already obtained.

Mr. MOLES: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us if he knows of any police force in the whole world in which that condition is applicable, and whether it was applicable to the conditions of the old Royal Irish Constabulary?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I think it refers to police forces in this country if on retiring on pension they are re-engaged in a police force.

Mr. MOLES: I am discussing now what the right hon. Gentleman described as the
Imperial force. It certainly did not apply to the old Royal Irish Constabulary. It is quite a new proposal.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I pointed out quite frankly that the point was a debatable one. I hope the point will be raised in the discussion how far a pension granted to a policeman should be taken into consideration if that same policeman is re-employed either in a police force or in some public office. Subsection (4) applies the Pensions Commutation Acts, 1871 to 1882, to the pensioners of the Royal Irish Constabulary, that is, commutation granted at the discretion of the Treasury. Up to the present those grants of commutation have been made to the ex-members of the force for the purpose of emigration only, and a considerable number, several hundreds, have made application for the commutation of a portion of their pension for the purpose of going abroad, generally to one of our Dominions. On page 3 of the Bill there is introduced, so far as I know, quite a new scheme in the interests of pensioners, ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. It is quite obvious to anyone who knows Irish conditions, and especially the state of employment in Ireland and in Great Britain, that for the next year or two the pensioner will be in greater difficulty, especially the pensioner with a small pension, than he will be, I hope, in the future. Under this new provision, any pensioner having less than 15 years service may augment his pension, under certain conditions, by receiving a larger amount of pension for two years from the date of his disbandment, and afterwards receiving a less pension in order to recoup the Treasury for the increased amount of pension granted during the two years. I am now referring to Sub-section (4) and the whole of page 3, except Sub-section (5). This is granted as an annuity for two years. I will give an example to show the House how it will work. The minimum pension granted to an ex-member of the Royal Irish Constabulary is £46 16s. a year. That is for a man who served less than six months in the Force. It is the largest pension for that length of service ever granted. That man's weekly pension is less than £l a week, but by augmenting his pension he can get not £46 16s. a year, but £106 12s. a year for two years, if 21 years of age, and for the succeeding
years his pension is abated until the repayment is made on the technical scheme set out on page 3. He will thereafter receive a reduced pension of £37 16s., instead of £46 16s.

Mr. MARRIOTT: I presume there is no power of recovery if the man dies. The Treasury must take its chance.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: If the man dies the pension ceases, although provision can be made for the widow and children at the discretion of the Treasury.

Sir J. REMNANT: Is there any compulsion about it? Otherwise, we know how the Treasury and the Government have treated the widows and children over here. They have always let them down.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am speaking of the widows and children of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and I do not think it is fair to suggest that this is ungenerous treatment. The last joined recruit gets a pension nearly equal to that given to the man who has won the Victoria Cross. None of these last joined recruits did any fighting of any kind, and I hope to convince the House that the terms are most generous. The plan of augmenting a small pension for two years and decreasing it in subsequent years is a very fair way to meet the pressure on those particular policemen who cannot live on their pension or secure employment during the present period of depression. Take a constable with ten years' service with a pension of 38s. a week, aged 30. He will be able to increase his pension from 38s. a week to £2 15s. 6d. a week for two years, and at the end of two years his pension will be reduced by 2s. 9d. a week to 35s. 3d. This applies to all members of the force who have less than 15 years' service, and who we think are in need of increased pensions or compensation allowance during the next two years.
Sub-section (5) is a precaution against fraud, and Sub-section (6) dates back the operation of this Bill to the 25th of January last. I have already expressed my regret that I could not get the Bill before the House at an earlier date. I think everybody is agreed that disbandment was the only possible course for the Government to take under the circumstances. Sub-section (8) deals with the
transfer to the Treasury of the powers of the Lord Lieutenant or Inspector-General with respect to pensions allowances or gratuities. Sub-section (9) fixes as the date of transfer to the Northern Government of the responsibility for certain pensions of the Royal Irish Constabulary the date of the passing of this Act. Clause 2 deals with the transfer of public services in -connection with Resident Magistrates, and I have already dealt with that. Clause 3 deals with the validation of things done or omitted in the execution of the Acts relating to the Royal Irish Constabulary. The Royal Irish Constabulary is governed by a great number of Statutes, which applied very well in normal times. Each county had its local strength of constabulary, and if it was necessary to move, say, 100 men from the Reserve in the Depot in Dublin down to County Kerry, the cost of the extra force was chargeable in part to the local authority. During recent hostilities which have prevailed in a very large part of Ireland it was impossible to apply all these strict rules, especially having regard to the fact that the local government of Ireland entirely broke down.

Mr. R. McNEILL: What hostilities?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The hon. Member will have to refresh his memory. I said in recent hostilities which occurred in Ireland. Clause 3 is put in to validate the movement of police, and all the matters that were done in consequence of the recent difficulties in Ireland, not in strict accordance with the Statutes governing the police, if they were authorised by the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary, or certified by a Secretary of State to have been necessary or expedient for the restoration or maintenance of order in Ireland.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman says that Clause 3 validates everything that has been done. I do not so read the Clause. I only read it as applying to the appointment or distribution of officers or constables. It is important that this point should be cleared up, because if it is intended to be a general validation, very large and contentious questions may arise.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The Noble Lord is quite right. It does not apply to everything done. Those things which the Noble Lord probably has in his mind
must be covered by a Bill of Indemnity, which will be brought before the House at the earliest possible moment. The Bill is in draft and only awaits the time of the House before it is presented and discussed. This is a severely technical matter, and does not raise the whole of the issues that must be raised and discussed when the Bill of Indemnity is submitted to the House.

Mr. R. McNEILL: Then the Clause merely covers the appointment or distribution of officers?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: It goes further than that. It deals with the question of expenses. The extra expense of taking a number of police to a disturbed county would be borne in part by the local ratepayers. We have spent the money.

Sir F. BANBURY: There is no doubt about that.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: My right hon. Friend is not responsible. This Clause is to validate those acts which had to be done by the Constabulary Authorities by reason of the very disturbed state of Ireland in recent years.

Mr. R. McNEILL: Does that mean the acts which were necessary to keep them on the run?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The hon. Member can draw his own conclusion.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Supposing this money had been incurred in sending special police into a disturbed county, the cost of which is to be recovered out of the local rates. Do we preserve our right to get that money from the local rates?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The only place where special police have been used in recent years is in the area of the Northern Parliament, and certain expenses—

Mr. MOLES: My right hon. Friend has missed the point of the question. The question was whether police had been sent specially, and not whether special police had been sent.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Those are two entirely different matters. I think I have explained that. The Schedule omits certain portions of the Act of 1920 for the benefit of the police. I would like to give, very briefly, although it has been
before the House for some weeks, the actual terms of disbandment, so that there can be no doubt as to how the Government is treating the ex-members of this gallant force. In the first place, every member of the Royal Irish Constabulary will receive a pension, and the minimum pension will be £46 16s. a year. That rises, according to rank and length of service, to £600 a year for a County Inspector. These pensions are based on the Act of 1920. When the Act of 1920 was passed I do not remember anyone criticising it on the ground that it was unfair or ungenerous to the police. I quite admit that in 1920–21 the conditions were worse, and that the conditions now are worse for the disbanded men in some parts of Ireland than would have been the case if they had been disbanded in 1914, 1917, or 1918, and it is because circumstances are different that these additional grants have been determined on by the Government.
Any Irish member of the Constabulary can receive Disturbance Allowance equal to one, two or three months pay according as he is a single man or a married man with two, three or more children to enable him to remove his family and furniture to this country. His family and himself receive a free warrant from any part of Ireland to any part of Great Britain or Ireland. It is a fact that the expenses o£ removal come under scrutiny in order to assure the representative of the Treasury on the Tribunal that the money has been fairly spent. In addition, every Irish policeman who leaves Ireland because he feels himself to be in danger is entitled to draw, from the date of disbandment, separation allowance as if he were still serving the Crown in a hostile Ireland. That means that every married constable or sergeant gets 14s. a week, every Head Constable 17s. 6d. a week, and every officer 28s. a week, in addition to his pension. It is limited to a period of three months because it is hoped—after all we must have some regard to the public purse in these matters— that within three months, or within three months of the final disbandment of the force, matters will have much improved in Ireland. If things do not improve, as it is hoped they will, I shall be prepared to urge the continuance of this separation allowance.
Special facilities are also given to alt ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabu-
lary to emigrate. They can have a part of their pensions commuted and arrangements made for their passage to any part of the world. In addition—this I consider most important—we have set up a special Tribunal under the chairmanship of Sir Edward Troup, until recently permanent head of the Home Office, and therefore a man of considerable experience in police administration, assisted by Mr. Clayton, an Assistant Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary in Dublin, and Mr. Upcott, a well-known Treasury official. This tribunal sits from day to day to hear exceptionally hard cases from all ranks of the police. They have the power specifically to recommend an extension to a maximum of six month's pay of disturbance allowance for the purposes of removal, gratuities, in addition to disturbance allowances, up to a maximum of six month's pay, and such additional allowances in any individual case as it may appear to require. I submit that those cannot be described as ungenerous terms.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. ALLEN: Is the Tribunal sitting now?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The tribunal sits from day to day. If any hon. Member wishes to bring cases before it all he has to do is to send the facts or come himself to the Irish Office. I say that because I know that many of these policemen are very timid about appearing before any tribunal. I can assure them that they need have no fear of appearing before this Tribunal because its meetings are held in a room allocated to it and the policeman is entitled to give evidence himself, and bring any witness he likes to support his own evidence.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Without his name being disclosed?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: His name must be disclosed to the Tribunal.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Disclosed outside?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: No, there is no publication at all. I have always supported any policeman who is in great personal danger. In addition, I would remind the House—and Ireland is the only country in the world to which this applies —that under the Criminal Injuries Acts all members of the Crown forces who have
been killed or wounded during the recent critical times are entitled, through their dependants in the case of the killed, or through themselves when wounded, to receive awards from the County Courts. From the 1st January, 1919, to 11th July, 1921, the date of the truce, there were, in Ireland, policemen killed, 366; wounded, 572. Soldiers killed, 128; wounded, 297. The total casualties in killed and wounded were 1,363. That is a ghastly total. But it has to be said that every dependant of the killed, and the surviving wounded, get awards of money, which have been paid, or are in course of being paid now, and that the award of the County Court Judge is never questioned by the Government in relation to these persons. I shall ask the House shortly for money in order to complete the final payment in all these cases. I will give a case in point. A sergeant was wounded in the foot in a fight in the West of Ireland. He went to the County Court Judge and got an award of £2,000. He then comes to this country —this is a case which I know of my own personal knowledge, just as I know many others—and he gets several hundred pounds on account. The balance he certainly will get within the next few months I hope, and he gets a pension of £3 15s. a week for life in addition. My point here is that in addition to the pension and the extra grants which we have made under the Criminal Injuries Acts, grants have been made to dependants of killed and the surviving wounded on a scale never hitherto thought of in the history of war, or disturbances of any kind, in which casualties result.

Sir J. BUTCHER: That applies to cases before the truce, but does the compensation under the Criminal Injuries Act apply to cases since the truce?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The point raised by my hon. and learned Friend is an important one and—

Mr. MOLES: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that there are plenty of cases of policemen being murdered since the truce, and in many places it is not possible to bring the matter into Court, because the Courts are not able to sit. What is done in these cases?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: That is very important, and I will deal with it. The awards made for casualties up to the date of the truce, 11th July, 1921, will be
paid by the Government. Since 11th July, 1921, the policeman has his remedy, under the Criminal Injuries Acts, which are still law in Ireland. I admit the point taken by the hon. Member, that in some parts of Ireland it is difficult to bring these cases before a County Court Judge who is interrupted, when he desires to hear the cases, by ruffians who come in arms and compel the Courts to break up. Those eases apparently are not numerous, so far as my information goes, and I think that they must be looked upon as a postponement of justice, and not as a negation of justice.

Mr. MOLES: The postponement of justice is, in effect, a negation of justice, as it is well known that these Courts will never sit again under British justice. These men are entitled to have their cases heard and determined. It is the business of the Government under which they serve, and in whose service they incurred injuries, to protect them, and this is the time to protect them.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I see the point raised by the hon. Member. This was an arrangement come to some months ago, when there were no murders, because between the truce and the treaty, though there were woundings of policemen and attempted murders of policemen, I do not think that there were any policemen murdered as a fact. Since the Treaty there have, I admit, been over 20 policemen murdered and over 40 wounded.

Mr. R. McNEILL: There were policemen killed within a week of the truce.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: That is not my information. Whatever it may be, this agreement as to payment in full of the personal awards by the County Courts was arrived at in consultation with the Provisional Government of Ireland and it was decided at that time that the dividing date should be the date of the Truce, namely, 11th July, 1921, and that after that the usual remedies under the Criminal Injuries Acts should be sought by those who are victims of violence in Ireland.

Mr. MOLES: That remedy is now denied them.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: In a certain district in Southern Ireland an unfortunate applicant for justice in one case was actually murdered. In other cases
the applicant has not been able to have his cause heard in the County Court because the Court has been broken up by armed ruffians. My own view is that in those cases the Government have certainly a moral responsibility for these men, and I am prepared in Committee to consider some Amendment that might meet the very hard cases of these men, but I am explaining now that we arrived at this particular date, 11th July, 1921, not because we do not agree that the policemen and soldiers who have been subsequently murdered or wounded do not deserve the best sympathy, support and treatment which the House can give them, but because this was the date fixed by agreement with the Provisional Government and one cannot alter such dates without re-arrangement with the Provisional Government.

Mr. R. McNEILL: Why was this distinction made between the cases which occurred before and after the truce? Was not the responsibility of the Government for these men greater and not less than the responsibility before the truce, and why do they get worse treatment instead of better treatment?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I do not agree. When the truce was arranged it was hoped that the Courts would function in the usual way, and that the normal remedy of the Courts under the Criminal Injuries Acts would continue. In some cases—a few cases—for we must not exaggerate in these matters—

Sir W. BARTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the percentage of the total number of the Courts which are not functioning?

5.0 P.M.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: According to my information, about six Courts have been disturbed, not in all cases, but in certain cases, where a policeman has asked that his case should be considered under the Criminal Injuries Acts, not the police man himself, but someone acting on his behalf—

Sir W. ALLEN: Would the right hon. Gentleman promise to bring in such Amendments as will deal with these particular cases, for, as he is well aware, private Members cannot do so?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: My personal view is that it must be done, and I am sure that my colleagues will agree with
me that it ought to be done. But this is a matter that one must submit to one's colleagues to get final decision. When the Bill gets into Committee, I shall do my best.

Mr. MOLES: There are only a few of them.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I submit that the Bill and its terms show that the Government, supported by the whole House, have tried to deal fairly and sympathetically with the Constabulary. If you ask me whether the terms are adequate, I say that no terms are adequate for men who have gone through what these men have gone through. One must, however, have some regard to the claims upon the public purse at this time. One must have some regard to the disbandment of thousands of officers and men of the Army and Navy. In these cases the difficulty is not in the amount of money that I am asking the House to allocate to the Royal Irish Constabulary. The difficulty is to make certain that these men, their wives and families have the hope of a secure future and a decent chance to continue a peaceful life. The House will excuse me if I speak with great feeling in this matter, for the most honourable part of my somewhat chequered career has been the fact that I gladly associated myself with this force during its most difficult period. I have done my best, during the greatest pressure upon me, not only to defend them in this House, which was never difficult, because the House was always sympathetic, but also during difficulties and troubles in Ireland. I think they are the pick of the Irish race. Nearly all of them are the sons of farmers. Some of them are farmers themselves, and they looked forward to a return to their farming at the end of their careers in the police, force. For many that is now impossible. The men have never flinched in their devotion to duty, and I think that country is happy where these men and their families ultimately settle. They bring with them pensions, payable by this House, to the extent approximately of £2,000,000 sterling a year, although a very large portion of that will be recouped from the Irish Free State Government and a part of it from the Government of Northern Ireland. To any country where they go they bring with them perfect
physique, the highest character, and thrifty habits as assets. I am sure this House will commend them as men and women worthy of the heartiest welcome and the closest fellowship to whatever country they may ultimately go.

Mr. ASQUITH: I need hardly say that I do not rise to offer any opposition to the Second Reading of this Bill. After the long, and not too long, explanation of the Chief Secretary, I confess myself still in a state of great mental obscurity as to most of the Bill's provisions. I think the Bill is a monumental example of drafting ambiguity and chaos, and I cannot help thinking that when the Bill gets into Committee a number of points which the right hon. Gentleman has somewhat superficially touched will require much more careful scrutiny and explanation. I shall not go into what may be called Committee points. I will make only one general observation, and that is that, anxious as we all are that members of this great force, about to be disbanded, should receive not only just and equitable, but generous consideration from the House of Commons, there are difficulties in the present condition of Ireland which make the normal operation of the Courts, as the right hon. Gentleman has admitted, in. many parts of the country almost impossible, and even where the Courts do operate, and where decisions are given and judgment pronounced, I fear that in a very large number of cases it is impossible to obtain execution of them. I say that because it governs the whole situation when you are considering the practical operation of any terms which may be laid down in an Act of Parliament for the compensation of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
My sole purpose in rising was to say what I very strongly feel, that it is in some ways a melancholy though a necessary result of recent legislation that this great and historic force should at last be disbanded. I shall have the sympathy of the whole House when I say that. I have been concerned for many years, and responsibly concerned, in the administration of Irish government. I have never known a case, no matter who was in power or what the character of the legislation passed by this Parliament, in which the Constabulary did not loyally respond to the obligations put upon them. Recruited, as they are, from all the
different sections of the Irish people, Roman Catholics, Protestants, North and South, East and West, they have never failed, in my experience, in carrying out the duties imposed upon them as executive officers of the Government and Parliament of the day. They have a glorious record. I do not believe that a finer force was ever got together in any part of the world, not only physically, not only in point of what you might call everyday efficiency, but in the magnificent spirit of discipline and loyalty they have always applied to the discharge of their duties.
When we are passing a Bill of this kind, which, after all, is the epitaph, the winding-up of a most distinguished force, I do not think this House ought to part from its long association with this devoted band of servants of the Crown without expressing what we must all feel and what history will record— the deep sense of obligation under which we stand for the services they have rendered to Great Britain, to Ireland, and to the Empire. As far as I am concerned, and as far as I am entitled to speak for anyone else, we would like to see that necessary process accompanied by every possible consideration for the well-being and the security of those who are passing out of the service of the Crown. While I do not profess to be able to understand, with my limited powers of comprehension, the explanations of the Chief Secretary, or to be able to ascertain with any precision what will be the actual result of the compensation provision in this Bill, I do venture to urge upon the House that the provisions of the Bill should be scrutinised in Committee with the utmost care, that all ambiguities and obscurities should be removed, and that the whole of our proceedings in the matter should be dictated by a spirit of gratitude and generosity to this great force, which now disappears from the scene in which it has played such a conspicuous and patriotic part.

Sir J. BUTCHER: The House will have heard with some emotion and with great satisfaction the distinguished tributes which have been paid to the Royal Irish Constabulary, not only by the Chief Secretary but also by the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), who by his long association with politics has had ample opportunity of judging of the
value of this force. We have heard these tributes paid by the two right hon. Gentlemen with intense satisfaction, and I feel confident that everyone in the House will feel that the tributes were couched in by no means more generous terms than the force deserved. Those of us who have lived in Ireland and have known Ireland for forty or perhaps more years, and have witnessed from time to time the action of the Royal Irish Constabulary, look upon the disbandment of this splendid force as little short of a tragedy. As the Chief Secretary has said, it was formed shortly before the accession of the late Queen Victoria, and ever since that day its record, often in times of great stress and grave danger, has been an unbroken record of fidelity, of loyalty, of devotion, discipline, and conspicuous courage. I need not recall that record except to say this. We all remember the dark days in the Eighties. The right hon. Member for Paisley will remember them well. They were the days of the Land League, and the Plan of Campaign. We also remember that in 1906 peace had been absolutely restored, and prosperity and contentment to a degree "greater than had ever been attained," as Mr. Birrell said, "in the course of 700 years." I have no hesitation in saying that a large part of that great result was due to the devoted services of the Royal Irish Constabulary during the time of danger.
In my judgment, it is next to impossible to exaggerate the debt which this country and the inhabitants of Ireland owe to the Royal Irish Constabulary. Let us, in their hour of difficulty to-day, be careful to discharge that debt adequately, to discharge it not only with justice but with a measure of generosity. While I profoundly regret the disappearance of this force from Ireland, I recognise that under the legislation which this House has passed the disbandment of the force is unavoidable, but it is our duty, having regard to the record of these men, and more especially the recent appalling sufferings and experiences of these men, to make the terms of disbandment as generous and just as we can. The terms of disbandment in the Bill are not adequate. If this were a case of the disbandment of police under normal conditions, and in an undisturbed country, these terms, I agree, would be reasonable. But let us remember that these men are being disbanded under conditions abso-
lutely unprecedented, possibly in this or any other country. Had they been disbanded in 1914, when the position of the country was fairly normal, the men could have gone back to their homes in Ireland and lived with their families in decent contentment, undisturbed by local assaults. But to-day owing to the orgy of crime which has taken place in Ireland since the rebellion of 1916, the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary and their families are regarded with hatred and bitter animosity and an organised campaign of ferocity is being carried out against them. Most of them dare not return to their homes in Southern Ireland. They must either emigrate to Northern Ireland or to Great Britain.
I am not going to recall the black record of the last six years. But I think it is germane to the purpose of settling what terms should be offered to these men, to remember what they have suffered during the last two years, not to go any further back. In the year immediately preceding the truce, there were, according to statements given by the Chief Secretary in this House in February, no less than 15 members of the Royal Irish Constabulary brutally murdered and large numbers of murderous assaults and woundings of these men. One might suppose, and certainly the Chief Secretary in his more sanguine moments did suppose, that once the truce was signed, all these horrors and murders would cease. In fact, in making his arrangements with the Provisional Government, the right hon. Gentleman assumed there would be no trouble or disturbance after the date of the truce, and on that account made no provision for continuing the operation of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act. What has happened? Since the date of the truce, according to the best statistics I can get, 20 members of the Royal Irish Constabulary have been brutally murdered. The House will not forget that appalling case in which two of these unfortunate men, who were lying wounded in hospital in the West of Ireland, were assaulted by some intolerable fiends in human shape and murdered as they lay in their beds. During the period from the truce up to the other day, there have been something like 80 murderous attacks on members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Many of
them have been wounded and many of them have had their homes burned and their property destroyed, but that is not all. One would imagine that, once these unfortunate men, these courageous servants of the British State, to whom we owe so much, had been disbanded, discharged from their duties and sent home, then, at any rate, these outrages and murders might cease and that for the rest of their lives they might have been allowed to remain in their little homes in Ireland with their wives and families, undisturbed by brutal and fiendish outrage. If anyone held that anticipation, it has been cruelly destroyed, because what has happened? Since these men have been disbanded, several of them have been murdered in getting to their own homes. Many of them have been threatened with death on arrival at their homes, unless they left within 24 hours, and in many, alas! far too many, cases even the wives and families of these men have been told that unless they clear out of the homes in which they have lived all their lives, they will be subject to similar outrage.
I have here numbers of the most pathetic and heartrending letters from men who have been disbanded, telling me how they have gone to their homes and have been met, in some cases in the middle of the night, just as they arrived, and told, "You must leave in 24 hours; you must leave your wife and family, the home in which you were brought up and in which you hope to spend the rest of your days, and you must go away—we care not whither—an exile to some foreign land." Why is this done? Because these men have been faithful servants, because they have served the English Crown and have been true to their trust. The House will allow me to read one of these letters to illustrate what has happened to these men. I do not give the name of the man nor the names of the places he mentions, because it would be dangerous to do so. He writes:
I was disbanded on 4th instant. I left Dublin at a quarter to five for — I reached my destination at eight forty that evening and remained there until the following Saturday, four days. I left — for —" (his home) "and reached there at a quarter to nine. Immediately on arrival there I was arrested by about twenty armed men, some of whom carried revolvers, and they conveyed me to the old R.I.C. Barracks.
A singular insult not unworthy of the men who perpetrated it. The letter continues:
They searched me there and also my luggage. After about an hour they left me and told me to go at once out of the country. I came back to Dublin to-day.
That is only one of dozens of such cases. I have said that the wives and families were threatened also. Let me give only one reference to that. There will be found in the "Irish Independent," a Nationalist organ, of 8th April last, an announcement of a very remarkable action on the part of a public body, the Galway Urban Council. This council, by a majority of votes, ordered that the wives and families of Royal Irish Constabulary and Auxiliaries should be given two months' notice to quit their cottages and clear out of the country. What is the result of all this? The result is that, already, according to the estimate given to me, something like 1,500 of these men have been forced to fly from their homes and take refuge in this country. The number is placed at either 1,500 or 2,000. Many of them have not yet been able to bring their families. The Chief Secretary tells us he will provide them with travelling expenses. Of those who are still in Ireland, something like 25 per cent, have had to leave their homes and families in Southern Ireland and fly for refuge to Northern Ireland. This is a matter upon which the mind and feeling of this country, if the people only knew the facts, would be most deeply stirred and the people would urge the Government, as we urge them to-day, to do everything in their power to alleviate the sufferings of these men, to make it possible for them, if it can be done, to remain in Ireland, and if that be impossible, adequately to compensate them and enable them to live under a happier sky and in a freer world, than that in which they have lived in Southern Ireland. As illustrating the public feeling referred to, may I mention the very remarkable picture in this week's issue of "Punch," which very often seizes the feeling of the public and depicts it with striking accuracy. This cartoon shows an ex-Royal Irish Constabulary man, a fine, splendid, well-disciplined looking fellow, with his wife and family beside him. It pictures him having to clear out of his home and take refuge wherever charity will accept him
or wherever fortune and fate will be kind to him.
In the circumstances I have described, I wish to suggest to the Chief Secretary certain points in regard to which this Bill can be improved. I believe I am speaking to sympathetic ears, and that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will do their utmost to accede to the claims I put forward. The first claim is this. By the terms of disbandment these men are granted what is called a disturbance allowance in case they have to leave home and go elsewhere. These terms are totally and entirely inadequate. A single man is awarded one month's pay to compensate him for having to leave his home and seek refuge in England or Scotland or elsewhere. A married man with two children is to get two months' pay, and a married man with three children three months' pay. The very minimum which the Chief Secretary should grant in cases of that sort is, in the case of the single man, three months' pay—little enough— in the case of the married man with two children, five months' pay, and in the case of the married man with three or more children six months' pay. Nor should these amounts be doled out to the men on the production of railway tickets and vouchers of hotel expenses and so forth. They should be free gifts, to enable the man to live, to give him a chance and to let him make his home in his new surroundings as best he can. These suggestions of mine are extremely moderate. I think I should have asked more, and I think the Chief Secretary will perhaps give more. If I compare the pay which these men are now drawing and the pensions which they will receive after disbandment, I find the average loss in the case of an officer is something like £5 10s. per week or rather more than £300 a year, and in the case of the men it is £2 10s. per week, or about £130 a year. That is the actual loss which these officers and men sustain by reason of their disbandment, instead of being allowed, as in happier circumstances they would be allowed, to continue their employment. I hope the Chief Secretary will frame the Money Resolution upon which this Bill will be considered in Committee in such a form, as to enable these points to be raised and adequately discussed.
The question of commutation of pensions will have to be considered. There
is power given to the Treasury, in Subsection (4) of Clause 1, to commute pensions, and I want to know whether that power is to be exercised only in the cases where a man wants to emigrate to the Dominions or to some, foreign country. I imagine not, but I should like to have a definite assurance from the Chief Secretary, because it would be ludicrous to say: "Here you are; you have to uproot your old surroundings, and if you go to Canada you will be allowed to commute part of your pension, but if you go to England or Scotland you will not be allowed to commute a farthing of it in order to set you up in business." If that is not already made clear in the Bill, it ought to be. Further, this power of commutation ought not only to be granted to the Royal Irish Constabulary men who are disbanded under this Bill, but ought also to be granted to Royal Irish Constabulary men who are already in possession of pensions, but who, in many cases, will be subject to the same outrages in Ireland as these disbanded men and will have to leave their homes and settle in another country. There are other points which I will reserve for the Committee stage, but I must mention one really important question.
Under the Bill as it stands, the pension which is granted is to be suspended if the pensioner is employed in either a police force or in any other public service whatever. That is an absolutely unjustifiable restriction upon a man. He gets his pension under this Bill for his past services, as a reward for his fidelity and devotion, and are you going to say to him, "If you got no other employment you will enjoy your full pension, but if you choose to get another berth and desire to add to your existing pension, your pension will be suspended?" I say that, that would be an outrage, contrary to policy, decency, reason, and justice, and, therefore, I would urge the Attorney-General to bring that point before the Chief Secretary, so that he may be willing to grant that concession when the Bill comes into Committee.
I thank the House very much for having listened to what I have had to say. I can assure the House that there are few things I feel more deeply. The men of the Royal Irish Constabulary are some of the earliest memories of my child-
hood, and I have seen them repeatedly since those days, in times of terrible danger and distress, doing their duty like loyal and brave men. I deeply regret that they are going to disappear from Ireland, a disappearance which I think is disastrous to the inhabitants of Ireland themselves, and I think the Members of this House, animated as they are by a desire to do justice to faithful servants of the Crown, will see that, so far as it lies within our power to make the lot of these men who have served us so faithfully not only bearable but a happy one, we shall leave nothing undone which can achieve that result.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: I rise to say a few words for one reason, and for one reason alone. Is it that I feel, as one who has consistently supported the Irish Treaty, that all of us who voted for it are under a peculiar obligation to treat, not only justly, but generously, the men who are going to suffer in what we believe to be the general interests of public policy. On that ground I think there is a great deal in what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) has just said, with reference to the terms offered to the Royal Irish Constabulary under the Bill. Let me first ask the Attorney-General why it is that we are only now considering this Bill. I should have thought that a question of compensation of this kind ought to have been settled at once. As it is, it is now almost the middle of May, and all the remaining men of the Royal Irish Constabulary have, under Clause 1, to be disbanded by the 31st of this month. The Chief Secretary said, in the course of his speech, that he was anxious that the men should not be disbanded in great masses, but gradually, and obviously so, for very good reasons. Then how comes it about that the Government has left the settlement of this question so late that no less than half the men have got to be thrown upon the labour market, or wherever they have got to go, in the course of two or three weeks?
That is the first question I should like to ask, and, having asked it, let me say a word or two about the actual terms that are being offered to the men. The House is in this difficulty, that in the Committee stage of a Bill like this, no private Member will be able to propose better terms, for the reason that he would be imposing by his Amendment a charge
upon the public purse. That means that those of us who think that the terms are not adequate have to deal to-day with what ordinarily would be Committee points; otherwise, we shall have no chance of making them. But before I come to one or two details where I think the Government is not sufficiently generous, let me put to the House this general point. If hon. Members will study the conditions that are being offered under this Bill they will see that, generally speaking, they differ very little from the conditions that were offered under the 1920 Act. The Chief Secretary alluded to certain small additional grants that were being offered the men—superannuation allowances, for instance, and grants for removal in certain cases—but, speaking generally and apart from these small exceptional differences, the terms that are being offered to-day are substantially the terms that were offered under the 1920 Act. That seems to me to be altogether wrong. Let hon. Members think of what has happened since the 1920 Act, and of all that these men have been through during the intervening period. Whatever one's views may be, and in whatever part of the House one sits, one cannot help feeling that these men ought to be offered substantially better terms than were offered under the 1920 Act.
Let me come to another point. It seems to me, as far as I understand the terms, that the senior men in the force are not being offered nearly good enough terms. The Chief Secretary made a great deal of the fact that a member of the force who entered it during the last six months would receive for life a pension of £46 a year. I am not going to say that that is too much, for I agree with the Chief Secretary that you cannot adequately compensate these men, but if a man who has only entered the force during the last six months is to receive £46 a year for life, I say it is altogether inadequate that the men at the top, who are now receiving more than £1,200 a year, should have as a maximum pension something in the nature of £500 or £600 a year. I hope that when it comes to the Financial Resolution, and when it comes to the Committee stage, the Government will make this difference right and will see that these senior men get much better terms than they will under the present proposals of the Bill.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for York alluded to another very important question, the question of the removal allowances. There again I think they are inadequate, and I think my hon. and learned Friend was very moderate when he made the proposal that the periods of three, five, and six months should be substituted for the periods of one, two, and three months. I think that is a very moderate demand, and I hope the Attorney-General will take steps to see that that demand is satisfied.
Lastly, there is the position of the Hard Cases Tribunal. I think it is a good thing that there should be a Tribunal of that kind, but I think its activities might very well be extended. As it is, it is too circumscribed in the reference that is set cut in the financial White Paper. It might deal much more widely with cases than it appears to do under the last paragraph of the Government's White Paper. I am not at all sure that it would not really be better to have got rid of a great many of these complicated arrangements, to have got rid even of the Hard Cases Tribunal, and to have faced the fact that these men have been serving in quite unprecedented conditions during the last two years, and that all of them ought to receive a gratuity, a settled gratuity, based, no doubt, upon length of service, for the work that they have done during the last two years. I believe that if that proposal wore adopted, a proposal for which there is the precedent of the gratuities paid (hiring the War, it would do away with all the many complications that the Chief Secretary tried to describe today, and which are set forth in this White Paper. If, however, that cannot be done, I again wish to emphasise the urgent necessity of complying with the proposal made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York, that the removal allowance should be increased in the way he has suggested, and that we should remove from this House the slur of dealing ungenerously with a splendid body of men.

Brigadier-General Sir W. HACKET PAIN: As a Divisional Commissioner of the Royal Irish Constabulary from the time the appointment was first made until the so-called truce last year, I desire to bring before the House an aspect of the case of the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary which, so far, has not been
touched on. When I first became a Divisional Commissioner I found in the North of Ireland that many of the officers and men had been drafted to the South, the North at that moment being peaceful, but precautions were being taken, the police barracks were to be put in a state of defence, and I wish the House to mark this point, that the policeman was to be turned into a soldier. The men of the Royal Irish Constabulary had a certain amount of military training besides their ordinary constables' work. They were taught to use a carbine, which, from a military point of view, is a Very inferior weapon, and to shoot a certain number of rounds, and they were taught the use of the bayonet, but their chief weapon was the baton. They were really trained as, and were, policemen. But, owing to the emergency, they were to be turned into soldiers, and taught the use of the service rifle, bombs, rockets, Very pistol, machine gun; in fact, they ceased to function as policemen, and became soldiers. Many of the serving constables, when they were turned from policemen into soldiers, were found to be too old for military activities, and, consequently, these men were summarily retired from the force, and so lost their claim to the better pensions which have been recently granted to their comrades. Having by every means in my power endeavoured to raise the moral of these men, and fit them for their military duties, I now find that they are unable to live in Ireland, the country of their birth, and I consider that the most generous terms should be given to these men in addition to what has already been promised. In proportion to the activities that they have willingly carried out, their living in Ireland is made more impossible, and I feel very deeply in this matter, because in carrying out the orders of the Government, I, to the best of my ability, in every sort of way, increased their activities which were most willingly and devotedly given, and in that way I am afraid I have done them a bad turn.
These remarks refer to the whole of the Royal Irish Constabulary. But the class to which I wish particularly to draw attention are those men who do not benefit by the new scale of pensions who have come in since then, owing to their having been turned out of the Force, because they were too old or not sufficiently active
for their military duties. I do not think that these men should suffer. I know this means a question of money, but I think the House, which has approved the policy that has done away with this magnificent Force, should sec that every man in that Force is properly looked after, and that not one officer or man should be made to suffer from unexpected legislation.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: I only-wish to say a few words in support of what the hon. Baronet the Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) said just now in reference to increasing the amount of the disturbance allowance from one, two and three months respectively, to three months in the case of a single man, five months in the case of a married man with two children, and six months in the case of a married man with three children These allowances are roughly an average rate of £16 a month,. and I suggest to the House that telling a man he will get a sum of £32 to bring his wife and family over from Ireland, is not a sufficient or a generous amount to give him to enable him to start again in this country. I agree that some of the pensions given are comparatively generous, more especially in the case of those younger members of the force who have only served a very short time, but in the case of these men, many of whom have had a little farm in the country, and have got a comfortable home together, and so on, cannot turn out of their home, bring their wife, children, and furniture over to this country, and set up a home again for £32. That is not enough money to bring them over from the West of Ireland and set them up here. The amount offered by the Government is only allowed with the proviso that the men have to produce a voucher as to their actual expenses in moving over. It would be far better, and the right, generous, and proper thing, if the Chief Secretary were to take power in the Financial Resolution to increase that amount, as suggested by the hon. and learned Member for York, and give disturbance allowance, without any voucher, in the form of a bonus or gratuity to these men, as a real disturbance allowance, to enable them to set themselves up and carry on in this country in their entirely new surroundings. It would not cost a large sum of money. We worked it out in a private Committee the other day at something, I think, less
than £200,000 for the whole force, and that, I submit, would very largely meet the deep sense of grievance they have at present in that respect.
There are other matters in connection with this Bill which require consideration. One, which was partly alluded to by the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare), is that, although the pensions of the younger men are, to a certain extent, generous, the older men— men who have really qualified for pension before—get no increase whatever. A man, say, with under 10 years' service does get 12 years added to his service in counting his pension, but men who have actually served a sufficient time to get their pension—and there are men who have not only served their full time, but, instead of retiring, stayed on in the service to support the Government in troublous times for two years beyond their retiring age—get no advantage whatever. That is a case which ought to be met by some special addition, by taking power to get more money in the Financial Resolution.
As regards the tribunal which has been set up to deal with special cases, that, of course, is a good thing, but that tribunal is sitting here in London, and I am informed by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary that a great many of the men do not like the idea of sending in their claim to a tribunal in London, because they know that that again will be submitted to Ireland for inquiries to be made there, and they know there is no secrecy in the post, and no secrecy in the Castle—at least, they, and, I believe, a great many other people, too, are under the impression that there is a leakage, and that these men are bound to suffer if they put forward these claims here. It might be possible to have a separate tribunal to deal with those men who are able to stay there At the time the amount of disturbance allowance was fixed by the Government, it was the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman and his advisers and, I believe, the opinion of General Tudor, who was the Chief of Police, that a large number of the Royal Irish Constabulary would be able to remain in Ireland—that they would not be molested.
What are the facts? Up to the end of last month 3,100 of the old Royal Irish Constabulary had been disbanded. Of those, 1,254 were compelled to come to Great Britain owing to threats. The
total number remaining in Ireland was 1,846, of which number 960 were driven out of their homes by the Irish Republican Army, in spite of the loud-sounding amnesties and so on of Mr. Michael Collins's Government, to which Ireland has been handed over by this House, and which is quite unable to enforce the law or protect any citizen in Ireland, with the result that the insurgent Irish Republican Army are doing what they like and ordering people about all over the country, and the 960 members remaining in Ireland have been chased out of their homes. I have in my hand over 50 different cases of the way in which this was done. I do not wish to read a large number of them, but I should like to draw attention to one or two. In Water ford two disbanded members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who returned to live in Portlaw, were served with typewritten notices to leave the "Waterford Brigade area" within 24 hours. The notices wore served I y a member of the Irish Republican Army, who occupied Portlaw Barracks, in the name of the Provisional Government. I will give another case in Waterford. A notice, signed "Thomas Keating, Officer Commanding No. 2 Battalion," was served on an ex-sergeant to leave the area within 24 hours. Keating took over Waterford Barracks in the name of the Provisional Government. Those are two cases where the so-called officers of the Provisional Government in Ireland are the very people responsible for intimidating and chasing these men away from Ireland—a very pretty commentary upon the power of Mr. Collins to control his own people!
Another point arises in reference to the separation allowance, and here again I would ask the Attorney-General to make a note of this particular point. The Government have given a separation allowance of 3s. a day to those men who have to come over from Ireland. That sum is totally inadequate. They all complain that they cannot possibly keep their wives and families on their pensions, plus only that amount of 3s. a day, and even that is only to go on for three months. The case of the Auxiliaries and temporary men has also been mentioned by the Chief Secretary. The case of the Auxiliary Cadets has been brought up once or twice in this House recently, that is to say, the case of those men whom the
Government got to sign on before the truce, and then deliberately broke faith with their contracts. About 300 of these men took on in July of last year. Many of them are now destitute, and almost on the verge of starvation in this country. Many of these temporary men, who carried on their duties through the most dangerous times in Ireland during the last three years, are also destitute, and here again I would ask the Attorney-General to make a note of this point. These men have come over here. It has been decided that they are not eligible for unemployment benefit, because, of course, they were not insured. Surely the Government ought to give them some special allowance in these, times, when it is quite impossible for them to get work. They ought to get some special allowance in the same way as the soldiers did after the Great War.
6.0 P.M.
It makes one have a feeling of deep shame to come across men, who gave support to this country in the War, and afterwards did splendid work in Ireland, now being turned out with a £10 bonus, and told to clear out and look out for themselves. They come over to this country and are quite unable to find employment, and as they are debarred from unemployment benefit the only thing open to them is the workhouse. I suggest that the Government should take some steps in the matter. I sincerely hope the Chief Secretary will give us some assurance on the point when he replies. There is just one other matter I desire to raise, and that is with reference to the motor transport men, about 500. They come under this Clause. First of all, the men are not insured. Most of these men would have been insured in England, and then, if unemployed, would have been eligible for unemployment benefit. These men have a particular grievance in respect to that, and as regards unemployment benefit.
The second thing that I would like to know is whether in reference to Circular No. 2677, issued by Dublin Castle authorities, the Government will carry out the pledge which they gave to give the men a gratuity of £25 for each part of a year over the original 12 months. I would like my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General to see if the Chief Secretary cannot be induced to carry out what was promised
by his own officials. I hope that these extra allowances will be given, that the men of the temporary forces will be dealt with generously, and some allowance given to them for the next few months to prevent them from having to go to the workhouse or starve. If these things were done, I believe that the feeling of resentment and the feeling that they have been ungenerously dealt with will be removed from the minds of these splendid men who are now being disbanded.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: There has been a remarkable unanimity in the the Debate on one point, and that is, however generous may be the financial grants to be made in settlement of the constabulary claims, the details and distribution of this money is not equitable as between the men with short service and those who have given their lives to the Royal Irish Constabulary. I think it is unreasonable if you give a district inspector who served only a few months a life pension of £120 a year, you should limit the man who reached a far higher pay and spent perhaps 30 or 35 years in the service to a sum of £600, which is very much less than they are at present getting. It seems to be forgotten by those who framed these terms that this arrangement, under which a man adds 12 years in some cases and 10 years in others to the number of years he has served in arriving at his pensionable service, is absolutely useless to any man who has served for 30 years. The limiting to the two-thirds maximum of all retiring allowances means that many of the men will get little or no benefit from these added years.
The terms, I think, are more inadequate in view of the fact that so many of these men will have to be expatriated and have to start afresh in what, to them will be a strange country where it is very difficult to find employment. To my mind, they have been subjected to something very like a breach of faith. The Chief Secretary said over and over again, not only in this House but in addresses to the Royal Irish Constabulary in their own country, that he at least would see that they did not suffer for their patriotism and for their ungrudging work. What do we then find? Not that the men are getting the terms of the 1920 Act, but in reality terms which are much less favourable, and for this reason: under the 1920
Act the men were to have not only got the added years which are now secured, but they were in addition to have six years on full pay. That was far larger payment, and there was adequate time in which to look around for further employment. There is no doubt now that they have been docked of these six years, which they were assured of in the original terms, that they are nothing like so well treated, in spite of the fact that their position in Ireland is nothing like so good as it was, and they have really far greater need for compensation than ever was contemplated when the Act of 1920 was passed.
There is also this point; that a pension reasonable enough, and perhaps even generous for an old man who has got no dependants, is often very insufficient for a man in the prime of life who is responsible for bringing up his family. The trouble in this respect becomes aggravated toy the higher pay you get in the service, because men who are very valuable in the Royal Irish Constabulary owing to their long experience, have nothing like the same earning power as they had in the higher grade when they have to go outside, and they cannot possibly expect to land in equally well-paid civil employment. It seems to me to involve a point of very great hardship on these middle-aged men, who are being summarily retired from the only work in which they have been trained, and it does compel comparison with their one-time payment and the income to which they have been immediately reduced.
I have had some pitiable cases put before me. In one case of men who at one step were reduced to half and less than half of what they were enjoying, and who have to face the prospect of having to withdraw their children from school, and to deprive their SOUK, who are growing up, of that start in life to which they had looked forward for many years. I could give one or two of these cases of men who are serving in what is known as temporary appointments. Take the post of Divisional Commissioner. Some of the men occupying these posts were appointed from the Royal Irish Constabulary. The post was known to be a very dangerous one. Two of the men thus appointed have paid with their lives for their loyalty. There is a precedent in this position of Divisional Commis-
sioner and for what I ask. Mr. Hird, who was a previous occupant of such a post, was pensioned in 1898 on two-thirds of his then pay of £l,000 a year. He received £666 a year under conditions which were far less dangerous than those which have been faced by his successors in the post of Divisional Commissioner and under present-day circumstances. The present Divisional Commissioners were never warned at the time of their appointments that their posts were temporary. They took these posts without any question and faced what is admitted to be the most dangerous occupation in the whole of the constabulary work in Ireland. After some weeks they were told that their rank would not be substantive, but that they would really be graded for the purposes of pension as County Inspectors. What does that mean? That the amount of £l,250 will be dropped in one step to £600.
I have spoken to the Chief Secretary and, as always when he is approached about these matters, he expressed very great sympathy and assured me that these cases should be dealt with by the tribunal which has been set up to consider cases of exceptional hardship. What these men feel is that it is extremely difficult to see how they are to argue exceptional hardship before a tribunal which can point to the fact that the Chief Secretary has retained as a regular basis for pension that they shall be retired on two-thirds of the salary of a county inspector. They fear further that under paragraph (e) the powers of these exceptional hardship cases will be limited by the two previous paragraphs (a) and (b). I want to ask the Chief Secretary when he replies to make it quite clear to these and the other men who served in these temporary appointments, that this tribunal will be empowered to deal with their cases and will be enabled to recommend, not only a gratuity such as this mentioned in paragraph (b). but even an extra retiring allowance under paragraph (c). If the right hon. Gentleman will deal with that point and give a definite assurance it would, at any rate, until their cases are tried, do a good deal to allay the bitter anxieties now being felt.
I want the right hon. Gentleman also to see if he can give any consideration to the men who have missed their pensions in the Royal Irish Constabulary by
having engaged for the Army for the period of the War. I have had some very hard cases brought to me. There was one man who had considerable service, something over 10 years, in the Royal Irish Constabulary before the War, and served in the Army from the outbreak of hostilities until the end of last year. He then was arranging to get back into the Royal Irish Constabulary at the moment this disbandment was announced. That man will get neither service pension nor constabulary pension unless the right hon. Gentleman can give power to a special hardship Committee to deal with cases of this kind which are not strictly pensionable within the four corners of the Bill as it is drawn. The hon. and gallant Member for Finsbury (Lieut.-Colonel Archer-Shee) mentioned the case of 500 motor mechanics, but he did not, I think, deal with the terms on which they have been discharged. To my mind they are grossly inadequate. These men have been sent away with only a week's notice, and a gratuity of £10. Other men who applied to be taken on as mechanics, but who failed to pass the test, were taken into the subordinate posts of drivers. Becoming permanent constables they have got a life pension, although their qualifications were not high enough to enable them to be accepted as mechanics, for which they had applied. Consider that these men are only getting £10, whereas the men in the auxiliary division who served on a somewhat lengthy contract got a minimum of £70 in most cases, which is a considerably additional sum. The right hon. Gentleman must admit that here is a case to be specially considered either by the tribunal to be set up or by some other means. I wish to add my voice to those who have claimed better consideration for these men. I know the right hon. Gentleman is trying to accommodate these refugees in this country, but it is not easy to house them. It is not desirable in the interests of their finding employment that they should all be concentrated in one building, where they would impede each other in applying for work. I beg the right hon. Gentleman to try and find some vacant accommodation for small numbers of them in as many centres of employment in this country as he can.
It ought to be possible in every military barracks to find room for half a
dozen of these urgent cases. The provisions of the disbandment terms allow for commutation of pension in the case of men who have to migrate oversea, but there is no provision for the men who emigrate from Ireland to England. Can the right hon. Gentleman not take some steps by which these men shall also be allowed to obtain a reasonable sum to enable them to buy a house or start business in this country? I hope he will deal with this point which I know affects a great many of these men, and I trust that he will make it clear that they will be able to claim for malicious injuries in due course and not lose their rights by having to flee the country and have the difficulty of producing witnesses after the lapse of a considerable period of time.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will listen to the appeal made to him to improve the terms of the disturbance allowance and raise it to three, five, and six months instead of one, two, and three. It does not amount to a very big sum. A single man would get £48; a married man with two children, £80; and a married man with a larger family, £96. Certainly that will not cover more than the loss to which these unfortunate men will be put. It is necessary, if they are to be saved from unnecessary harrassing, that they should be given this money unconditionally, and not have to prove every little detail of expense as seems to me to be anticipated in the rules before the tribunal. It is perfectly reasonable to give these lump sums in order that the men can make their own arrangements. A great many of them will not be in a position to prove malicious injury because their case will have practically been abandoned. They have left their furniture behind because of the impossibility of doing anything but escape with their families. Under the conditions to which they are subject, it is out of the question to get transport to remove their little possessions, and it is imperative, if they are not to be put to grievous loss, that they should be given lumps sums on a reasonable scale which will enable them to re-establish themselves in homes in this country. The disturbance allowance is limited to a period of six months.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: It is two months.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: My hon. and gallant Friend says it is two months,
but surely that is an unnecessary provision. I think that is an insane proposal because the only hope for Ireland is that it may settle down after the election. It has been continually said that if the people now suffering in the South of Ireland will only "stick it" a little longer perhaps conditions will improve. Under these circumstances, surely it is unwise to make men feel that they must clear out within two months or lose this payment, and in the interests of Ireland's future I beg the right hon. Gentleman not to add another financial pressure to all the other forms of pressure which are now being brought on these unfortunate men leaving the country of their birth.
The Amendments which we are asking for would not in the aggregate cost any very large sum, but they would remedy the worst hardship of those who are exiled from their country, and of the old men who have spent the best years of their life in ungrudging service, and who are denied very high remuneration in an alternative form of work. I know that you are giving generous terms to the younger men who form the bulk of the force, but I hope that the House will insist that full consideration shall be afforded to the men who are losing their homes and their honourable career so that the prospects of their young families will not be sacrificed because through no fault of their own this country no longer requires their services.

Colonel NEWMAN: At the opening of his speech the Chief Secretary made a remarkable statement. He told us that the compensation and pensions under this Bill were to be paid for under an arrangement made by the Irish Free State Government but that they would be guaranteed by Great Britain.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I said that they are to be paid by the Imperial Government, which is to be reimbursed Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland under certain terms which have been laid down.

Colonel NEWMAN: The Chief Secretary bases his case on the Act of 1920 which lays down that any pension allowance or gratuity which may become payable to the Dublin Metropolitan Police or the Royal Irish Constabulary, shall be paid for out of moneys provided by the United Kingdom, and any sums so paid shall be made good in accordance with
regulations made by the Treasury. That provision is all right for the North of Ireland but not for the South.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Under Article 10 of the Treaty, the Southern Irish Government pledges itself to recoup the Government for the pensions and so on of the permanent Royal Irish Constabulary, except in cases of men recruited during the last two years.

Colonel NEWMAN: Is that a lump sum? I take it to mean that there will be one final settlement after arbitration. As I understand the matter, the Imperial Government will be able to recoup themselves every year from the Free State Government the amount which it pays in pensions every year to the Royal Irish Constabulary. The Chief Secretary has told us that it was with profound regret that he had to disband this magnificent force, because he has had to disband one of the most splendid forces of gendarmerie that the world has ever seen, and this in a country which is in a state of lawlessness. There is one thing which a great many people in this country seem to forget, and it is the claim which the Royal Irish Constabulary have on our sympathies because it is not an alien force. It is not a force like the Varangian Guards of the Byzantine Empire or the Swiss Guards in the 18th century under the French King. As far as the Royal Irish Constabulary proper are concerned, I do not suppose that 2 per cent, of their number are not Irishmen. So far as social standing goes in Ireland or education or being a picked force, the Royal Irish Constabulary stand alone.
If you take the case of an Irish farmer, farming perhaps 100 acres of land, his eldest son would be brought up on the farm, his second son would join the Royal Irish Constabulary, and his third son, being his mother's pet, would be sent to Maynooth. This force was composed mainly of Irishmen. The homes of which I have spoken are going to be broken up, the second son is going to be turned adrift, and the reason is obvious. We are not living in 1920 or in the atmosphere of that year, but we are living in a totally different atmosphere. We British are being turned out of our country, and the Royal Irish Constabulary, as our servants, must go with us. Supposing that Belgium had been under German domination and
then the Germans, having served their time, had left the country. The Belgians would not allow the German gendarmerie to remain, and they would have to go.
We have to face the facts as we find them, and we have to remember that Ireland's great loss is going to be someone else's great gain. A magnificent body of men is, apparently, going to be thrown out of Ireland, although they are Irishmen. They will have to go somewhere, and they cannot go to the other place unless they have the means and opportunity of doing so. Looking through this Bill, and the Amendments which have been put down, one of the most important matters, to my mind, is the commutation of grants. We have been asked to put down an Amendment in Committee proposing that up to 50 per cent, the amount of each man's pension shall be held available for commutation. That will give a man who has a pension of, say, £3 a week, a chance of making a start either in this country or abroad. Apparently it is agreed that when a man goes abroad he shall be able to commute his pension, but not, I think, up to 50 per cent. I suggest that, whether he goes abroad or remains in this country, he should be able to commute his pension, not to a small amount, but up to 50 per cent. I am not saying that what this country is doing in regard to pensions is altogether ungenerous. We are giving a man who has served 10 years a pension of £1 18s. a week, and a man who has served 15 years £2 9s. 3d. If to that be joined some allowance to enable him and his wife to get away, if he be allowed to commute his pension, and if we do what the hon. and gallant Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Lieut.-Colonel Guinness) told us we ought to do with regard to certain higher grades, I do not think this country can be said to be behaving ungenerously towards this great and gallant force.
We have, however, to consider the future of these men as a whole. There are something like 8,000 of them, and half of them, I understand, are married men with families. Would it not be possible in some way to hold that force, or, at any rate, a portion of it, together? A large number of the special division of the Royal Irish Constabulary—the Englishmen in the force, who were specially recruited—are about to go to
Palestine under General Tudor for service as special constabulary there. Would it not be possible to make use of the younger unmarried men of this great force? How valuable would be a force of 2,000 of the Royal Irish Constabulary, say, in Constantinople to-day, to keep law and order. If I were commanding in Constantinople to-day—and I say it without disrespect to that great regiment, the Irish Guards, which has just gone there—I would very much rather have at my disposal, to keep law and order, 500 of the Royal Irish Constabulary than a battalion of the Irish Guards at full war strength. Would it not be possible to do something to keep these men together, should they wish it, by employing them in this way at Constantinople or elsewhere I With regard to the married men and their wives and families, could we not do something like that which the Roman Empire used to do, that is to say, found a military colony, getting these men and their wives and families emigrated in a body, say, to Western Australia or some other portion of our Dominions overseas, where they could settle down as friends, living together, and their children could grow up together. It might cost a bit of money, but in the case of these men, if they could commute their pensions, I think that, with money, energy and determination, and the acquiescence of the Governments of the Overseas Dominions, something could be done. I hope that in Committee we shall be able to make this Bill a better one than it is. It is not a bad Bill, but it does need alteration here and there, and I think we shall have the sympathy of the Chief Secretary in our endeavours.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Ernest Pollock): The point raised by the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken is so important that I venture to intervene at once in order that I may reassure him, and also the House, if they have any misgiving on the point. I understood the hon. and gallant Member to be in some doubt as to the source from which these pensions would in future be paid. There must be no doubt whatever about that. If the hon. and gallant Member will look at Sub-section (7) of Clause 1, he will see that it states that:
All compensation payable to officers and constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary under this Act (including any compensation
which is to be treated as so payable), and any pensions and gratuities granted to widows and children of such officers and constables in pursuance of this Act shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament.
And, as ancillary to that, it will be seen that the next Sub-section, Sub-section (8), provides that the powers of the Lord Lieutenant, and so on, are to be exercised by the Treasury. It will also be seen that the Schedule includes a paragraph under which any reference to the Lord Lieutenant shall be construed as a reference to the Treasury. I am far from saying that these provisions are necessary for the purpose of payment, but they are for the purpose of getting rid of difficulties and providing that the administration of the sums voted by Parliament shall be under the authority of and exercised by Parliament. Therefore, all those who are entitled to receive this money will receive it under the authority of and from the Treasury—not on a mere guarantee, but direct. I cannot put that more plainly, and I hope that it satisfies and reassures the hon. and gallant Member.

Colonel NEWMAN: I am quite satisfied as to the pensions of the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary, but where does the British taxpayer come in? How is he to recover the money?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I am afraid the British taxpayer is going to pay for it in the first instance. I cannot offer him a higher or a better place, qua taxpayer, than that he should pay the taxes, and call attention to the fact that his representatives in Parliament, including the hon. and gallant Member, have provided that money shall be provided by him in order to pay these pensions. I thought that the difficulty which presented itself to the hon. and gallant Member was as to whether they wore to get the money direct from the Treasury, or merely on a guarantee of the Treasury. My answer to that is that it will be absolutely direct. Perhaps my right hon. Friend may find himself in a greater difficulty when he has to go to the Treasury to ascertain what quantum he can in order to assist in relieving the British taxpayer.
Perhaps I may also say a word or two on one or two smaller points, which are in a large measure Committee points. The hon. and learned Member for York
(Sir J. Butcher) raised a point on Subsection (3) of Clause 1, which deals with the question of the re-employment of these men. The hon. and learned Member suggested that in no circumstances should their pension be considered where they are re-employed. Of course, it has often happened that this House has had to consider pension schemes, and the problem which the hon. and learned Member raises is an old one, but I think he will see that the provision made here is not ungenerous, and is in accord with the usual scheme adopted in such Acts for a similar purpose.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, under the Police Pensions Act, 1921, the pension is only suspended if a man gets employment in a police force, and that there is no suspension when he goes into any other kind of service? For some reason or other, however, the pension is suspended here, firstly, when he goes into a police force, and, secondly, when he goes into another public office.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I am not unacquainted with the points which the hon. and learned Member puts to me; but I would remind the House that this is a matter for consideration in Committee. It will, perhaps, also be wise to consider that a definite scheme has been laid down and is largely adhered to, as is illustrated by the fact that we have to go back to the public services dealt with under the Act of 1892 in order to find the conditions, and that system has been developed since. To reassure hon. Members, I would remind them that the Bill provides, in sub-section (3) of Clause 1, that
if any officer or constable takes service in any police force, or is appointed to any office remunerated out of moneys provided by Parliament "—
I do not know why it should only be in the case of a police force. Something is to be said for an office which has the advantage of being remunerated by moneys directly voted by this House—
or to any office which is a public office within the meaning of the Superannuation Act, 1892,"—
and then comes this very important phrase—
and on his ultimate retirement therefrom is awarded a pension …
Therefore, a case in which pension is taken into account must fulfil a threefold
condition. He must either be engaged in a police force, or appointed to an office remunerated out of moneys provided by Parliament, or to an office under the Superannuation Act, 1892—and in all three cases, it must carry a pension. Whether that be fair or not is a matter which we can consider in Committee, but, for the purpose of enabling hon. Members to make up their minds about it, it may not be unwise at this moment to call attention to the actual terms. If it be an unwise provision, it can be altered in Committee,: if, on the whole, it commends itself to the Committee and to the House, it can be adhered to. After all, it is not a matter upon which one can lay down a definite or cast-iron rule; it is a matter for consideration by Members of this House. The hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) suggested that the powers of the tribunal were too narrow, and referred to the last Clause of the Memorandum on the financial provisions. I think, however, that he had looked only at Command Paper 1649. I do not know whether he had in mind the terms of Command Paper 1618. The powers of the tribunal are really very wide indeed. In Command Paper 1649 they are summarised, and summarised rather shortly. They are set out at greater length in Command Paper 1618. They include the power to recommend

"(a) the extension up to a maximum of six months' pay of the disturbance allowance for the purpose of removal which may be granted under Heading 2 above;
(b) the payment of gratuities in addition to disturbance allowance up to a maximum of six months' pay;
(c) such other exceptional provision as any individual case submitted to it may appear to require."

Sir S. HOARE: I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but could the tribunal deal with such a case as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds mentioned, namely, the case of a divisional commissioner? Perhaps, if the Attorney General is not able to answer that, the Chief Secretary will do so when he comes to reply.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I have my own opinion at the present time, namely, that it is not intended to leave an untrammelled discretion as to the amount of pension. I think the pensions are laid down by statutory authority.
The powers of the tribunal are ancillary to that, and exceptional provision can be made where individual cases require it, but I do not think they can abrogate the whole table of pensions, and say that they have power to deal afresh with every case independently of statutory authority.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: My right hon. Friend said they could only deal with individual cases. Does that debar them from dealing as a whole class with certain men who were not established under the 1920 Act?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I really could not answer that question. It will be for the tribunal to say whether certain cases come within a class or are to be treated as separate individuals. That must be in their discretion. I could not say that as a matter of law or that there will be any definite decision upon it. One must give the tribunal certain credit for discretion, and they will have the facts of these cases before them. A point which arises on every scheme of pensions is, Have you provided fairly between the men who have given long service and those who have only been employed for a short time? You have to consider carefully how you will deal with the different standards of service. After very careful thought and consideration by the Departments concerned, which is perhaps one reason why the Bill was not introduced at an earlier date, the standard which is set up by the Bill has been laid down. I do not think, fairly looked at, the terms are ungenerous. Indeed. I think it is because hon. Members have not been able—and I am not surprised—fully to appreciate how generous the terms are that some criticism has been directed against the Bill. Probably my right hon. Friend at some time in the course of the passage of the Bill in Committee will be able to submit a table which will enable hon. Members at a glance to see what are the provisions made in different cases and at different periods of service. With that I think they will be able to see that, in addition to the terms laid down in the Act of 1920, very considerable advances have been made for the purpose of meeting the greater disorder which has existed in Ireland since that date, and the needs of the men, and also making some con-
tribution from this House for the great gallantry they have shown in difficult circumstances.

Mr. MOLES: Hon. Members who, like myself, come from the North of Ireland, find ourselves in this happy position, that the case which it would have devolved upon us to make has been made most generously, handsomely, and adequately by the representatives of English seats. The case we should have desired to make for the police force as a whole could not have been better presented, and from every quarter of the House there has come the most generous testimony to the unflinching fidelity, the unfaltering courage and the unfailing devotion to duty of the finest police force in the world. If you want to test the character and the quality of their service, a figure or two given by the Chief Secretary at that box a little while ago will tell you their story in language which is the most brilliant testimonial which could be given them. One in every twenty of the police force in Ireland was killed in a period of two years and one in every twelve, in addition to that, wounded. There is no police force in the whole world with a record such as that. No police force has ever been put to such a test and certainly none whatever has responded to it in the same superb way. The Chief Secretary has said, with a large measure of truth, that the Government has dealt handsomely in the main with the police force, and as a general proposition I am not here to challenge that. It is when you come to look into close details that you find here and there indications of meanness and parsimony which are a blemish and a blot upon the Bill, and it is a curious thing that in the history of the Government in dealing with this police force you get that running all through. If you look at the old manual, going back to the period in which a constable was paid £54 a year, embargoes were laid upon him. His wife must move in a certain social set. She must not keep fowls, she must not even compete in the greengrocery trade, and they laid this last injunction upon him that any policeman enjoying a salary of £54 a year who was found keeping racehorses would be dismissed instanter. I believe it is true that not one, policeman was ever dismissed for such a cause.
These men have devoted themselves to the police force as their life's calling, as other men devote themselves to medicine or the law. They find themselves now, through no fault of their own, with their whole career instantly arrested. Their very training and their very calling ex-elude them for avocations which would otherwise be open to them. The painful and terrible circumstances under which they have had to discharge their duty during the last three or four years, the criminal organisation which hunted them day and night and swept away more than half a battalion of them to their graves, has so poisoned and embittered the whole atmosphere of a great part of Ireland that there is neither work for them nor permission for them to live in the country in which they were born and which no other class of citizens have so well served. One would have imagined that the Government, which has so generously recognised their services, would have faced the facts and said, "These men have earned their pensions as of right. They are given them as a matter of simple justice. If they are able to find avocations which will occupy them honourably for the rest of their lives, good luck to them." But they do no such thing. They pay them lip service, and if any of them have the good luck to get into the police force here—and I would not object to the temporary cancellation of the pensions under such circumstances—they forfeit at once what you have admitted you give them as a matter of simple justice. If you give it them as a matter of simple justice, the instant you withdraw it you at once perpetrate upon them a gross injustice which you cannot defend. I am not going into details. My hon. and learned Friend opposite, who has been a faithful friend of the Irish police force, and who has very often assisted those, like myself, who have made themselves the defenders and supporters of law and order, has given instances, and so has my hon. and gallant Friend (Lieut.-Colonel Guinness), to whom I must equally pay a compliment.
The question of the cost, of removal has been touched upon, but one very serious aspect of it has been entirely lost sight of. It has been said that the facility for removing from every part of Ireland will be equal. It is not equal. Take the case of officers and men who find themselves in
Clare or some of the more remote parts of Connaught. The cost would be practically prohibitive, and it would be a charge upon the salaries of these men. Life has been terribly difficult for them. Upon occasions they have had to commandeer food when those who had it for sale refused to sell it, and when they come to remove their poor possessions and seek an asylum in this country, or go across the seas, expatriated from the country in which they were born because they served it faithfully, if you are then to squabble with them for a few miserable shillings, is it not pitiable and contemptible that the Government should stand upon a point like that. I hope my right hon. Friend when we go into Committee will look into matters of this kind and that we shall see a spirit much more worthy of this nation and the House towards the men who have so well served them. Another point was touched upon. Every officer in Ireland is subject to a hardship which I think was admitted, and which I think up to the moment has not been remedied. In view of the difficulty and danger of transport by rail and in other ways, every officer was forced to purchase a motor car. The Government bought the cars and delivered them to each, and deducted a given sum per month from his salary for the price of the car. The cars were bought at a time when the cost was high. The price has fallen a good deal now. These men find themselves out of occupation, and they do not need the cars, but the Government insist upon their paying the last shilling of the price. That is unfair. These men would never have had the cars but for the fact that they were discharging Government duties and acting upon strict instructions. The least the Government could do would be to take all these cars over from the officers at a fair and reasonable valuation and return them as much as they think is fair. Indeed, I think in the circumstances the Government might go a great deal further and cancel the remaining instalments or give these men some kind of chance of engaging in some sort of business where the cars would be useful to them for the sum they have already paid.
7.0 P.M.
I should like to call attention to what is really more or less a disciplinary matter. We are in this difficulty, that when we call attention to these Amendments which are desirable, they all involve
some measure of increased expenditure, and we are precluded by the rule from moving any such Amendments, that being reserved exclusively for representatives of the Government. For nearly two years nearly every promotion which has been made in the police force has been what is called a temporary appointment—temporary sergeant, temporary head constable, temporary district or county inspector, and so on. If the House merely had regard to that and did not know exactly what is involved, they might not perceive that this is one of the grossest injustices which could be done to these men. Let me begin with the lower ranks. Take the temporary sergeant. In the ordinary course that appointment ought to become permanent. It has been held up beyond the usual period at which it ought to be confirmed, and when the temporary sergeant comes to be disbanded he will, in a great many cases, actually receive a less pension than if he were treated as a constable for the full period of service. Surely that is an injustice. I know that the Chief Secretary is, first of all, too fair-minded, and, secondly, that he has too warm an appreciation of the services these men have so splendidly rendered to permit that to be done. I have asked him to take the case of these temporary appointments into consideration. The same is true of head constables. Take the case of the third-class district inspector. In a year and a half a man graded as third-class would be automatically graded as second-class, and would be entitled to the income of that class. But they make him a temporary appointment, and that automatic rule is suspended. That man is now to be dealt with as a third-class district inspector, and gets the pension that follows accordingly. It is as gross a wrong as could be done. My Labour friends, if these men were trade unionists, would say that it was a violation of trade union principles, and we ought not to treat public servants any worse than trade unions treat their members. That really covers almost the entire ground that I wish now to traverse. One point in the course of the speech of the Chief Secretary in submitting this Bill was dealt with by interpolation. He admitted the injustice of the matter to which I then called attention, and he has promised to give us redress when we come to the Committee stage. I leave these
matters I have submitted to the House, and I ask them to meet them because we are doing an injustice which I am sure the Chief Secretary does not wish to impose on the police force, and which this House has never sanctioned. I hope the Chief Secretary, when we get into Committee, will have considered these matters, and that as he is the only person who can amend the Bill he will take the necessary steps to do so.

Major HILLS: I rise for the purpose of reinforcing the appeal that has been made by so many Members, and by none more eloquently than by my hon. Friend who spoke last (Mr. Moles). If my appeal is made with less eloquence, as it certainly will be, it will be uttered with the same sincerity, and I hope the combined effect of an international attack on the right hon. Gentleman will have some result. I should like to make two observations. First of all, I noticed that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General was very emphatic that the British taxpayer had to pay all these allowances. I entirely accept that. I think it is an obligation they have to shoulder, but I do hope the Government, of which my right hon. and learned Friend is a distinguished member, will do its best to extract the money out of the Free State Government. After all, we hold their bond, and I hope it is worth something and will be enforced. I want to deal with a few other points which have, been referred to in the discussion, and, first of all, to reinforce what was said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Lieut.-Colonel Guinness), that of all people it is the long-service men who ought to have generous treatment. I believe a constable who has served for only a month or two months will get a pension of £46 a year. From the detached position of an English taxpayer I frankly think that is too much, but when you come to the top of the scale, these pensions are much too small. I would much rather see the money spent on the older men who have given their lives to this work than on the young men who have recently joined, who have all their lives before them, and who could make a career in other spheres of activity.
With regard to the disturbance allowance, I want to ask the Chief Secretary
a question. In the disbandment circular it was stated that men were given a period of six months in which to decide whether they claimed this disturbance allowance or not. I am told that an Order has been issued from Dublin Castle cutting down this period to two months. If that is so, and I am told it is so, it is a most unfortunate thing, for, after all, the terms of disbandment contained in the circular are the promises of the Government, and they ought not to be altered without very good reason. In any case I hope the right hon. Gentleman will deal with that question. The next point with which I want to deal is as to who can claim this disturbance allowance. I have read the White Paper 1649, and Section 5 of that says that if a man is compelled to move from his home he can claim certain allowances. Has he to prove that he is compelled to move, and what standard of proof is required? You impose a very hard task on a man by this. Often he cannot prove that there is danger to his life, yet everybody in the district knows there is. I am rather afraid that under that word "compel" you may exact a proof that a man cannot give, and if that is so you will defeat what I believe is the obvious intention, namely, that any man whose life is made impossible for him should leave. Seeing that a great many of these men have to leave their homes and their country, and to settle in what to them is the foreign land, and that they will not do that except for very good reasons, I am not sure you could not go the whole way, and give all members of the force the right to claim this disturbance allowance if they wish. I think you could do that very fairly. After all, a man will not leave his home without some very compelling reason. I do wish to reinforce what has already been said as to giving the man a lump sum down. Do not compel him to prove all his expenses, but give him a sum he can understand, and whatever it is it ought to be a lump sum. The sum in the White Paper 1649, the compensation for disturbance in paragraph 5 of that document, is one, two, or three months. It was suggested by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) that that should be increased to three, five, and six months. I support that most heartily. I would point out that the tribunal which is set up to deal
with exceptional cases now has power to raise that to six months, and so we are not asking a very great concession in requesting that it should be raised to three, five or six months.
There is one very important point on that to which I wish to draw the attention of the Chief Secretary. Any increased grant must be provided for in the Financial Resolution, because when we come to the Bill it will be too late, as we shall then have to abide by the terms of our Financial Resolution. I do hope the Government will include this in the Resolution, and also I do ask them to draw that in such wide terms that we shall not be upset in Committee in doing things we want to do by some technical deficiency in the Financial Resolution. A word about the tribunal for the cases of exceptional hardship. It says here that a tribunal will be appointed to consider and report to the Government upon any individual case in which, in the opinion of the tribunal, exceptional hardship, not otherwise provided for, arises. Can that tribunal deal generally with cases of exceptional hardship, or is its activity confined to strictly exceptional cases? Suppose it turned out that a large number of persons are suffering hardship. Are they precluded by the fact that these are not exceptions? It would seem to me very unfair that this claim should be admitted if there are a few cases, but that it it should not be admitted if the hardship is widespread. I see the Attorney-General shakes his head, which contains a good deal more law than mine. In any case, I have mentioned the point, and I hope the Government will attend to it. There is one very important matter on that arising under paragraph (c) of the powers of the tribunal. Paragraphs (a) and (b) are limited to particular cases in which the tribunal can act, and paragraph (c) applies to such other exceptional provisions as any individual case may appear to require. How far does that go? Are these general words limited by the particular words that precede, or has this body a general power to deal with all cases of hardships? I do not think it has. I think the case has to be exceptional, and the same sort of case as in (a) and (b). I would call the very serious attention of the House to the fact that the order issued by the
heads of the Constabulary and the questions they are sending to the constables and officers, who wish to claim this allowance, contain the following:
What are the grounds of hardship which in your opinion justify exceptional treatment in your case?
I think there is a real danger that these words are more limited than they appear. On this I do want to reinforce the appeal made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds on the case of the Divisional Commissioners. I do feel very strongly that these officers are being unfairly treated. They are now being paid a salary of £1,280 a year, and all they get as retiring allowance is £600 a year. They are surely entitled to the usual pension of their status. I cannot conceive any case against that. Could they bring their case before this exceptional hardship tribunal? My right hon. Friend the Attorney-General said we could leave cases of this sort to the tribunal, which was composed of sensible men. Certainly, we can leave them to the tribunal, but will the Government do so? Will they let them decide these cases? I am not at all sure that they will. It is very hard indeed that these men, who have had all the hard, responsible and dangerous work, should be so very badly treated. I hope the Chief Secretary even now will yield and will give them more generous terms. Other officers, whose services are not so outstanding as these have been, are receiving the same terms. The hon. Member for the Ormeau Division of Belfast (Mr. Moles) raised the question of temporary officers. During the War the gratuities that we all received were based upon our temporary rank. If we had only been paid upon our permanent rank we should have got very much smaller gratuities. Why should not the same rule be applied now, and all the Constabulary compensated and pensioned upon their temporary rank?
Finally, I want to say a word in favour of allowing some commutation of pensions to men who wish to settle in this country or to go abroad. I do not want to commute the whole of a man's pension; I would leave him something, so that he would not be penniless in cases where all the commutation has been invested in an improvident venture. The House must not forget that commutation does not cost the Treasury anything. All the Treasury
does is to pay the man the proper value of his pension, and finally it comes back to the taxpayer. Speaking for those who have to pay the Bill, I am quite certain they will pay it gladly. I am certain there is not a single Member of the House, nor anyone in the country, who does not want the most generous treatment to be given to these men, and I hope the Chief Secretary will give way on some of the many points that have been urged upon him.

Sir W. ALLEN: The hon. and gallant Member for Durham (Major Hills) need not have apologised to the House for his lack of eloquence in pleading the case of the Royal Irish Constabulary. He has put it in the most pointed and practical way, which I am quite satisfied will bear fruit with those who are responsible for the passage of this Bill. I should not have intervened at all, as every point almost has been put and well presented to the House, but for the fact that we shall have no opportunity of intervening later on, during the passage of the Bill in its various stages through the House, because all the Amendments that we require touch finance. We are, therefore, looking to the Chief Secretary, and, of course, to the British Cabinet, to deal generously when they come to the Committee stage. We are depending upon them to do that, and from what we heard from the Chief Secretary this afternoon, we believe that, at all events, his heart is big enough to do right by this splendid force.
May I point out, first of all, the necessity of doing something immediately in regard to the question of disturbance allowance? Various speakers have pointed out that this disturbance allowance is totally inadequate. That point has been sufficiently impressed upon the Chief Secretary. What I want to emphasise in particular is that whatever is to be done should be done immediately. I doubt very much whether even the Chief Secretary appreciates—I am quite certain the House generally does not—the trouble these men are going through in Ireland. An officer of the Royal Irish Constabulary wrote to me, only yesterday. He said:
I enclose a number of statements on the terrible feeling which prevails against all ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
He goes on to say:
It must not be understood by the Government or they would not 'let them down'
as they are doing. These statements were made about the end of March, but I am informed that things are worse since, and that many men who went to their homes after disbandment have had to fly. They have no home,"—
this was only written yesterday—
they have no work, and many of them have no money. It is a sad ending to our gallant, loyal force, of which we were all so proud, and the worst of it is that this is their reward for loyalty.
So I would emphasise again the necessity of doing something at once for these men who are in this terrible condition.
Another point I would like to emphasise, and which has already been touched upon, is that of the compensation allowance. I have no doubt that the House will generally understand that it is the intention that very generous treatment is meted out to these men by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. According to Rule 1 of the Ninth Schedule of that Act,
The compensation which may be awarded to an officer or constable shall be an annual allowance.
Rule 2 (a) says:
There shall be added to his completed years of actual service, if the proportion of salary on which his allowance is calculated is one-fiftieth, 10 years, and if that proportion is one-sixtieth, 12 years.
It would appear at once to everyone that these are most generous terms. I quite agree, if every single individual officer or man participated in that treatment, but I would point out that they do not, and that is one of the blemishes of the Bill. I cannot do better than read the words—it is a concrete case—that have been written to me by an officer of the Constabulary. He says:
Senior officers and men are entitled to special terms of compensation. They do not get the full benefit of the added years"—
I should like the Chief Secretary to take note of this particularly—
and some of them derive little or no benefit from these years. Take the case of an officer of 52 years of age, who can serve up to 60 years, that is eight more years. His salary and allowances amount to £845 per annum. He is retired on a pension of £433 6s. 8d. per annum"—
That is to say, he is at the maximum at the moment, and the added 12 years does not add one penny to his compensation. He is entirely excluded from the benefit of the 12 years.
he loses by retirement £411 13s. 4d. per annum. That is practically half of his
salary. His total loss in eight years is £3,293 6s. 8d. He is able and willing to continue to serve, but he is compulsorily disbanded. His disbandment is no fault of his. He contracted with the Government to serve, and has given them the best years of his life. He has arrived at an age a which he cannot start a new business. He has in many cases a family to support. He is ostracised in his own country for having served the Government. How is he going to live? The Government should specially compensate him, yet he is the worst-treated man in the Royal Irish Constabulary.
That is a case which deserves special consideration from the Chief Secretary. It is quite true, as he says, that it is impossible for these men to live under those conditions. I do not want to delay the passage of this Bill in going to a Second Reading. Two dominant notes that have been sounded all through the Debate. One is a generous expression concerning these men. The highest encomiums have been showered on them, but they cannot live on lip service. The second note is that there is a unanimous concensus of opinion that the most generous treatment ought to be given to these men. Therefore I ask the Chief Secretary to take his courage in both hands. I am quite satisfied that his colleagues in the Cabinet will say, "Treat these men generously." If that is done, I think the whole nation will be satisfied, because they respect these men.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am in full accord with what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Armagh (Sir W. Allen) has said. He appealed to me personally, and no one knows what these men deserve better than I do. I regret, more than anyone else, however, that their case, as that of other valued servants of the Empire, must be determined with reference to the condition of the public purse. My right hon. Friend the Attorney-General dealt with some of the points raised, and I shall not go over the ground he so well covered. I heard with pleasure the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for South Londonderry (Sir W. Hacket Pain), a recent recruit to this House, but an old and valued colleague of mine in the Royal Irish Constabulary. I am very happy in having him in the House to take part in the Debate, because he can speak with personal knowledge of the force whose disbandment and whose future we are discussing. A point has been raised by
many hon and gallant Members, including the hon. and gallant Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Lieut.-Colonel Guinness) as to the question of treating officers and non-commissioned officers who hold temporary rank on disbandment as holding that substantive rank and of pensioning them on the latter rank. I have received some deputations from some of the class involved in this matter. I am bound to say their case makes a great impression on me. Their case always has made an impression on me. The difficulty has been, in reference to the Divisional Commissioners and the acting county inspectors—both temporary ranks—that one would have to secure legislative authority to make them substantive ranks. That is the real reason why they were not made substantive ranks during the course of their duties.
The question now comes whether it is possible in any way short of legislation, if it is held to be desirable by the Government, to pension these men not on the substantive rank they occupied and adequately filled, or they would not have been there, but rather on the temporary rank which they held. I have been very much impressed, not only by the arguments in the House, by the situation of these gallant men, from the commencement of their careers as temporary officers in the respective grades which they held. All I can say at the moment is that I shall take the matter up with my colleagues in the Government. I decline to promise anything, because a Minister can promise nothing which involves a further charge upon the Treasury. The point can very well be raised in Committee, and I hope then to give an answer. If I had the power, I know what I would do. Although a Minister has no right to promise something which will add an additional charge on the public purse, I shall certainly refer the whole matter to the Government, so that it can be considered not only in respect of these particular cases, which I feel are most urgent, but with reference to all the cases, because the Government must consider the different arms of the service from which officers and men are now being disbanded.
Another point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Bury St. Edmunds was that we should not allow all the disbanded men to come to London. Steps have already been taken to meet that, and the
practice is for the men to go to Chester. Arrangements have been made for accommodating the men in Chester and in a number of towns radiating from Chester, where accommodation at reasonable prices is available, and where there is some chance of the men, if they so wish, securing employment. Most of these men are agriculturists, and can well earn the wages of agriculture or, in the senior ranks, the salaries that go to land agents or other higher officials on estates, if people can find employment for them. Let me give statistics which show that this problem is not one which has outgrown our power of administrative control. The number of applications for commutation for emigration purposes is 625. The number of applications for augmented pensions is 425. I am informed that there is no case where suitable accommodation has not been arranged for at reasonable prices for anybody who seeks it, except in a few cases where the families of the constables removing to Great Britain are so large that there is a temporary difficulty in securing accommodation.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: What does the figure of 400 men who have applied for augmented pensions mean I Does it men those, who apply for special hardship grant?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: No, it means those who have applied for what is called "loaded or augmented pension." That is, securing for two years a higher pension, and receiving in subsequent years a lower pension, to compensate for the two years of higher pension. On the question of commutation, it is true that up to the present the Government has only granted commutation to persons desirous of emigrating, but in principle the Treasury has full power to grant commutations to the police who have been pensioned, within their own discretion. The rule, I understand, is, that if an ex-Royal Irish Constabulary man can prove that it is to his advantage, for a special purpose, like the buying of a house or the purchase of a business, that his pension should be commuted to some extent, the Treasury would sympathetically consider such a case.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Alter the rules.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The rules do not govern the Bill. Up to the present
commutation has been restricted to emigration cases, but, further, the Treasury will sympathetically consider those applications for commutation where the applicant can make out a clear case that it is to his advantage to have a portion of his pension commuted.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Will the right hon. Gentleman say that the same principle would be extended to men who retired and got their pension before this Bill?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: That is another big question. All I can say is that the same rule which applies to one Government service governs other Government services. This is distinctly a Treasury matter, and I cannot speak for the Treasury, except to say that I know they will sympathetically consider these cases. The general rule is not to commute a man's pension for fear that if you commute his pension, and he secures a capital sum and he spends it, he may apply to the Treasury again to be looked after as an ex-public servant. This is a serious problem. The sound principle is to be reluctant to commute except for a definite beneficial purpose. The hon. Member for the Ormeau Division of Belfast (Mr. Moles) complained of the blemishes and blots of the Government in treating this force. I am sorry if there are any blemishes or blots. The Government is not quibbling over a shilling in dealing with the Royal Irish Constabulary. We are most anxious to meet every case that we possibly can. I hope that in Committee hard cases will be raised, and that I shall be able to meet them.
I agree that the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Durham (Major Hills) was very vital to the Financial Resolution, which is so worded that it does not debar even the Government from amending the Bill in Committee. I shall have a word with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the Attorney-General on that point; but, here again, no Minister can bind the Treasury. My experience of the Treasury, more particularly of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is that personally he is genial and generous, but as Chancellor of the Exchequer he is entrenched with his money bags, surrounded with barbed wire, and almost unapproachable. The idea that the Treasury squanders money recklessly is a delusion, as those who
have ever tried to secure any money from that Department can readily testify. They are right to make it difficult to get public money, but there are certain cases in the Royal Irish Constabulary which call for attention, and I believe it will be in the public interest, as well as common justice, that we should meet these claims.

Major HILLS: Can the tribunal which deals with the cases of special hardship deal with the case of the divisional commissioners?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am not going to define the functions of the Special Tribunal. Sir Edward Troop and his colleagues, so far as I am concerned, have the widest powers. There, again, their powers are powers of recommending the Treasury to make certain payments, and I cannot for a moment interfere with their discretion. I hope, and I am sure, that they will exercise that discretion in the widest sense and in the most sympathetic way.

Major HILLS: Does my right hon. Friend himself support the claims of the Divisional Commissioners to more generous treatment?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I believe I can best refer that to the Divisional Commissioners themselves. I have every sympathy with them as with every other member of the force, and I dislike to single out even senior officers. I had the honour to appoint them. They were appointed because of their courage and efficiency, and right well they deserve the support of this House, but I dislike singling out senior officers as being entitled to differential treatment. I would rather that the whole class of men of temporary rank were treated in one way, if possible. The Divisional Commissioners, or some of them, have already appeared before the Special Tribunal, and have put a case before them. I am going before the Special Tribunal to reinforce their own case. The hon. Member for Durham said that he had heard that the option of six months, during which a man could make up his mind whether or not to remove from Ireland, had been suspended, but I am glad to tell him that he has been mis-
informed. That is not so. It is rather a question as to whether the term should not be extended, but that is a point which can be raised in Committee.
It will be some consolation to the members of this force to know that the House does so much appreciate their unflinching devotion to the Crown. Surely the House can appreciate that, as I do. Perhaps I appreciate it more, if possible, than any other Member of this House, for I lived with these men during the worst days of the years that have passed. To me they are the bravest men and the best of comrades. If I had the money, nothing would limit the reward that I would try to make for these distinguished servants of the Crown. I hope that every Member of this House, and every good man in this country, will make this question of the Royal Irish Constabulary a personal matter. Their case cannot be met by money alone. They are strangers in this strange land, for which they fought so long and so well. I hope that every individual will try to secure for these men, not only employment, but a personal welcome that will go a long way to meet their just claim to the justice and sense of fair play, not only of the House, but of the Empire.

Sir W. ALLEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman satisfy the House that every facility is given to these men from the Southern and Western parts of Ireland to come over and appear before this tribunal?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Every facility is given. I see as many of these men as I can, personally. They know that they can come. In cases where they have to come without getting a railway warrant their fares are returned to them. There is no bar to their coming. They are encouraged to come, and this Special Tribunal is most sympathetic in considering the cases put before them.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is his attitude on the question of giving one, two and three months' pay for disturbance allowances, and the suggestion that instead of these allowances three, five and six months' pay should be given?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: My own view is that the cost is so large that I cannot
make any statement on it. I am told that the cost of the scheme would be about £870,000 in addition to what we are already doing. It is a very large sum of money and it does not meet the case. Mere grants of money will not necessarily save a man's life.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: I cannot believe that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates my hon. and learned Friend's proposal. The matter has been discussed, and I understand that those who advised him were of opinion that it would only double the present amount. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that the present cost of the present one, two and three months is also £870,000? We understood that it was less than £300,000.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: These various schemes have been worked out and the result submitted to me. The proposed gratuity of three, five and six months' pay would cost approximately £721,500. This would be in addition to the sum of £150,000 the estimated additional cost of removing the conditions at present attached to the grant of disturbance allowance, making a total cost of some £870,000.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Not additional?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Yes, £720,000 additional. But this is only a rough approximation, but I realise that the difficulty is this, that from a remote part of Kerry to some place in Scotland or England the allowance now given to a constable for removal of his furniture and household goods may not meet the actual cost of removal. Fares of course are paid. It is a point on which I cannot give a definite answer this, afternoon. I know that many hon. Members feel very keenly about it. I do not think that the way in which it was put by my hon. and learned Friend that it would necessarily meet the cases which he has in mind. It would be an additional large grant of public money without meeting the particular case which he has in mind. I hope to have this reserved for discussion in Committee and that the House will now allow the Second Reading to be passed.

WHALE FISHERIES (SCOTLAND) (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [9th May], "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Question again proposed.

Dr. MURRAY: I have no desire to oppose this Bill. I believe that it should be passed to meet the wishes of the Shetland people. In my constituency there are no people who want the embargo which the Shetland people, owing to the conditions existing there, desire, and as the Bill provides that it is not to be put into force except when the people want it I have no objection to offer.

Major MACKENZIE WOOD: I am not opposed to this Bill, but I should have been opposed to it if it had been, as some people wished it to be, a Bill imposing an absolute prohibition on whaling in these waters. It is because it is permissive and gives discretion to the Secretary of Scotland that I support it. Though I think that there is some evidence to show that whaling off the West Coast of Shetland has something to do with the disappearance of the herring in these waters, yet I do not think that it is proved fully, because we can give examples of many other fishing stations in the North of Scotland where there has been at one time a- large herring fishery which has suddenly disappeared without any good apparent reason. That being so, I think that it would be a mistake to suppose that because herring have disappeared in these water therefore it must be the result of the whaling that has been going on for the last 20 years or so. That is why I think that discretion should be given to the Secretary for Scotland, so that he can watch what will happen within the next few years and prohibit whaling only if he thinks that the case against it is fully proved. There is another reason. An attempt was made by bringing the two parties together to make an arrangement whereby both herring fishing and whaling could be carried on in these waters. It is possible that if whaling were confined to a certain time of the year, when herring fishing was not being followed, the herring fishing could be carried on at other periods of the year, and if the Secretary for Scotland has this discretion he may
be armed with some negotiating power which might enable him to get such an arrangement adopted.
It is advisable that some attempt should be made even now to see whether both these industries cannot be retained for Shetland. There is some danger that even if you do prevent whaling stations in Shetland, whaling will still go on in the same waters, and that the result of your prohibition will simply be that the station on land may be removed to some other place, say the Faroe Islands, and that the whaling may go on in the same waters as at present. If that were so the Bill would not achieve its object. That is why I think that it would be a mistake if the Secretary for Scotland bowed to pressure put on him to ask the House to prohibit whaling altogether. I hope that this question will be watched carefully by the Fishery Board, and an attempt made to get a little more information than we have at present about the habits of the herring. Ignorance of the habits of the herring is the cause of all the trouble. I know from my own experience in the North of Scotland that many old ideas as to the habits of the herring have now been rejected. Not very long ago it was believed that herrings appeared in the late spring or early summer in the Outer Hebrides and that they had a procession around these islands finishing up about Lowestoft or Yarmouth in the late autumn or winter. That was knocked on the head by the fact that suddenly in winter-time herrings were found up in the Minch, and now I believe that the winter fishing of herring at Stornaway is the most important of the year. Other theories have come and gone, and the only thing of which we can be certain now is our gross ignorance of the habits of the herring. I hope, therefore, that some better attempt will be made to get at the facts in reference to this difficult question.

Colonel PENRY WILLIAMS: I would ask the Lord Advocate to give us some information on the question of whaling and the people whose livelihood may be taken away by its prohibition. I understand that there is one big firm of whalers who have been established in Shetland for over 40 years. It is proposed now, because of some idea that their activities are detrimental to herring fishing, to take away without any com-
pensation licences which have been granted periodically to them. That would be a very hard proceeding. If you deprive this firm of its means of livelihood you should pay fair compensation not only to the firm, but also to the people whom they employ. It is conceivable that you may throw out of employment some 2,000 people in these islands who are engaged either directly or indirectly in this whaling, and these people may be displaced without any chance of getting compensation. That is a proceeding which is foreign to this House. When this House interferes with rights that have existed for many years it has always recognised the principle of compensation for disturbance. I have not heard any reason advanced now why this practice should be abandoned and I will ask the Lord Advocate to tell us why the Government think it necessary to suspend these licences and take away without any compensation the means of livelihood of this firm.

8.0 P.M.

The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. C. Murray): I have no wish to add anything to what my right hon. Friend has said with regard to the provisions of this Bill, but I would like to say one word in reply to what has been said. I am sure that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Munro) will take into consideration the suggestion thrown out by the hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Major M. Wood). On the question of compensation, some criticism has been directed on the ground that it is proposed in the Bill to give power to suspend or cancel licences without compensation in limited cases. My hon. Friend must be under some misapprehension, as my information is that the industry in the North of Scotland is of comparatively recent growth, and indeed, that it was instituted only in 1903. The reason why it is not proposed to offer compensation is as follows: while the principle is generally accepted that interference in the public interest with private property—where a license is renewable every year, it is not private property—calls for compensation, quite different considerations apply if the conditions are such as are contemplated in the Bill, because, as my hon. Friend knows, it is a fundamental of law that private right much yield to the public interest, and that if the carrying on of a man's business is prejudicial to the
interests of his neighbours, his right must yield. In respect of that, the provisions of the Bill are explicitly limited to the case in which the Secretary for Scotland is satisfied, upon inquiry, that there is detriment to the general herring industry. It is for that reason alone, I take it, that the provision is proposed that in such cases the general principle of law must prevail and private interests must yield.

AIR MINISTRY (KENLEY COMMON ACQUISITION) [EXPENSES].

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. JAMES HOPE in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of any expenditure incurred by the President of the Air Council under any Act of the present Session to confirm an agreement between the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London and the President of the Air Council in relation to the acquisition of certain lands in the county of Surrey, and for purposes in connection therewith, or under the agreement thereby confirmed.

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Captain Guest): The House was good enough yesterday to give me a Second Reading of the Bill giving Parliamentary sanction to an agreement between the Air Ministry and the Corporation of the City of London. This is the Financial Resolution by which we ask the permission of the House to charge the Air Estimates with a sum of £2,500, £2,000 being the cost of adapting new lands which are acquired for recreational purposes to take the place of the common which the corporation have transferred to us under this exchange. The additional £500 is made up as follows: £150 for compensation to certain owners for rights over the old common; £250, fees of Parliamentary agents: and £100 in respect of corporation costs. The House approved yesterday of the arrangement and without this small additional sum it would be impossible to complete the scheme.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

Mr. SPEAKER: There being a Motion appointed for 8.15, I shall now leave the Chair until that time.

[Sitting suspended till a quarter past Eight of the Clock.]

IRELAND (KIDNAPPED BRITISH OFFICERS).

Mr. GWYNNE: I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."
It is with some reluctance and with a feeling of responsibility that I move the Adjournment of the House to-night, in order to call attention to the failure of the Government to take adequate steps to secure, the, release of three officers of the British Army who have been kidnapped in Ireland. The facts, as far as I know them, are these: On Thursday, 27th April last, three officers, whose names and whose regiments for obvious reasons I shall not mention, were, motoring in County Cork. They got as far as Macroom, when they were surrounded by armed rebels and kidnapped, and from that day to this, as far as I know, nothing has been heard of them. It is not in order to make political capital or to try to show that the peace of Ireland has broken down, that I raise this question. It is too serious to do so when men's lives are in danger, as these men's lives are in danger at this moment, but I ask the House to realise what the feelings of the relations and parents of these officers must be. I saw a communication to-day from the mother of one of these officers—a piteous appeal. She does not know whether they are alive or dead, and, indeed, had they been in some savage part of Africa their fate could not be surrounded with greater mystery, nor could the uncertainty regarding them be more horrible than it is. It is because I feel the time has arrived when this House should realise its responsibility and should ask the Government to explain what they are doing to protect our troops and the loyalists in Ireland that I feel bound to raise and to press this question to-night.
What is the policy of the Government? They tell the House that an arrangement
was made that the troops should be evacuated from Ireland, but at the present time we do not seem to be pursuing a policy either of evacuation or occupation. If we evacuated, in the ordinary sense of the word, it would surely be, from the military point of view, a criminal act to leave outposts, or small numbers of men, unprotected in various areas under the conditions at present prevailing in Ireland. After all, the soldiers are sent there, and have got to stay there, and I always understood it to be one of the first duties of a Government to see that the men who are serving them in this way do not risk their lives unnecessarily, and are not sacrificed without any precautions being taken. I leave the military point of view to be dealt with by my hon. and gallant Friend who will second this Motion, only making this remark. I do not know whether the soldiers still remaining in Ireland are allowed to go about armed, or whether they have to take precautions against attacks by armed rebels, but I ask the Leader of the House, when he comes to reply, to tell us, from the military point of view, whether the men still remaining in Ireland consider that peace or war exists there. If there be war, the Government are directly responsible for allowing these men to be taken in this way. If there is supposed to be peace, why are we not having actual peace?
Let me point out another factor which is very material at the present time. In order to bring about this so-called peace, all Sinn Fein prisoners were released, whether they were in this country or in Ireland, and, as far as I know, were released unconditionally. There were shut up here something like 1,000 men who were so dangerous that they were not allowed to go about Ireland during the time when we had all our troops there, when we had police there, and when we had some opportunity of protecting our soldiers. These men, after their release, immediately swarmed over Ireland, burning, pillaging and murdering, and naturally, after having previously been captured and put in prison, one of their first objects is to try to go for those men who brought about their captivity. They are free to go about Ireland, and to wreak their vengeance on the very men who got them shut up, and who are sill in Ireland living practically unprotected. That
surely is a very risky proceeding. We have been told many times about regrettable incidents taking place in Ireland. How many hundreds of these regrettable incidents have there been since the truce? Surely it is not unfair to say that the Government were somewhat premature in their rejoicing over the peace which they say they brought about in Ireland.
No doubt the Government will tell us that the Provisional Government is the body responsible for looking after law and order in Ireland, and that it is to the Provisional Government only they can look for getting the release of these officers. Does the Government really think that the Provisional Government have the power at the present time to release these officers I Why, it cannot function in the capital of Ireland. It has not even occupation of the Law Courts there, and cannot look after civilians there. If it cannot function in its own capital, can anyone suggest that the Provisional Government is in a position to protect British citizens in the provinces? We have had clear proof, time after time, that they are unable to do so. The Irish Republican Army has repudiated the Prosional Government, and we have had to sit still and see men who were coming to this country dragged from the boat and taken back by the orders of some rebel body in Ireland. I ask the Leader of the House to tell us how long we are to go on suffering this state of things. How many lives will it be necessary to see sacrificed before some definite step is taken and some firm policy adopted? Is there a single instance to which the Government can point where the Provisional Government have carried out the death sentence on men who have committed murder and had it proved against them? We are told as a fact that a certain number of men have been tried and that sentences have been passed, but we know from evidence we have received that the very next day those men are at large. It is simply a make-belief in order to try and satisfy us over here.
The House should realise its responsibilities and should press the Government to say if there is going to be any limit to this state of affairs. I suppose the election may come in due course, but we do not know when. Are we to go on waiting, are our men to be murdered,
killed, robbed, and butchered in a more savage way than goes on even in Russia, and are we still merely to be told to be satisfied by remembering that the Prime Minister told us as recently as 15th December that Ireland, after this Treaty, was going to be
a willing Ireland, radiant because the long quarrel has been settled,
because, as he said,
by this agreement we win a deep, abiding, passionate loyalty,
and because, in future, when we are in trouble,
our victory will be her joy"?
There surely is a great responsibility on the Government at the present time, and I would appeal especially to-night to those Members in this House who, as I think wrongly, as they think rightly, felt that a trial should be given to this settlement, that something must be done. I would ask them to put themselves in the position of the relations and the parents of these unfortunate officers. Surely the experiment has been tried, surely so far it has failed, and I put it to the House that unless the Government can prove that there is some hope of this state of affairs ceasing, that there is some hope of peace in the very near future, the time has come to reconsider the position and to tell the Provisional Government that, if they cannot function now, other steps must be taken to save this country from the disgrace for which at the present time we are responsible in this House.
If this state of affairs were going on in any other country in the world, we should be looking upon it with amazement. Hon. Members from the benches above the Gangway would be screaming out. I do not forget that not many months ago, when a creamery was burnt down, hon. Members from those benches could not rest day or night about it, but not a word is raised when loyalists, men who have, served throughout the War, men who are still serving their country, are butchered and massacred. Not one word of protest is heard. Those hon. Members protested when a creamery was burnt down. They rose in a body, but they say nothing at all now. [An Hon. MRMBEK: "We voted for your Adjournment Motion to-night."] I do not want to raise feeling over this. It is much too serious, but I ask the House, Is there an hon. Member now who would
go over to Ireland or allow his family to go over under existing conditions, and, if not, what right have they to sit still here and allow these loyalists to be treated in the way in which they are being treated? I trust we shall have some satisfactory explanation. Unless we do, I shall feel bound to divide the House on this question as a protest against the continued delay on the part of the Government in securing that everything is being done that is possible for the protection of our troops in Ireland.

Field-Marshal Sir HENRY WILSON: I beg to second the Motion.
I rise to ask if the Government would in some manner define a situation which is at least difficult to understand, and I would like to ask two or three questions of the Government. What are our troops doing in Ireland? They certainly are not there to maintain law and order. Our troops, so far as my knowledge goes—and it is public knowledge—have been withdrawn from all the outlying stations, and are now grouped in Cork and Dublin, and there may still be a few in the Curragh. It is obvious that the troops grouped in Cork and Dublin are not maintained in the 26 counties to maintain law and order. Then what are our troops in the 26 counties for? Are they there at the request of Mr. Collins? If so, will the Government say so? Will Mr. Collins say so? If they are not, why are they there? We are told that the 26 counties are governed at the present moment by a Provisional Government. If the troops in the 26 counties are not there at the request of Mr. Collins, why are they there I Are they there because there is any difficulty in removing them? I have some experience in the movement of troops, and there is no difficulty whatever in removing the few troops that are still in the 26 counties. Are the troops there at the request of the War Office? I am not in a position to say whether they are or whether they are not, but I imagine that the War Office would be only too glad to get their troops back into England, where they could be properly trained and properly housed, and join their families. If, then, they are not there to maintain law and order, if they are not there at the request of the Provisional Government, if they are not there because of the difficulties of removing them, if they are not there at
the request of the War Office, then why are they there?
May I venture to make a guess? It is a guess, because I do not know, but no doubt some Member of the Cabinet could give us some reason why they are there. May I venture to make a guess? It is this. His Majesty's Government have some doubts as to whether or not Mr. Michael Collins will be able to make a Provisional Government, and, in the event of his not being able to do so, they think it might be a precaution to hold the towns of Dublin and Cork and the ports of Dublin and Queenstown. Surely the House of Commons has the right to know why the troops are in the 26 counties. The Government say they have made representations to the Provisional Government, and they are quite sure that the Provisional Government are doing all that is possible for the release of these three officers. But are the lives of our soldiers in the care of the Provisional Government of Ireland? Have the Government at Westminster handed over the troops now quartered in Ireland to the orders of the Provisional Government, and if they have not—and they have not—then are not the lives of our soldiers in Ireland the responsibility of the Government at Westminster? When the responsibility for the lives of these officers and men is directly on the shoulders of the Government at Westminster, what is the object, what is the use of saying that representations have been made to a Government who are not responsible for the lives of men, the responsibility for whose lives rests on the Government in this House?
Have the Government not yet learnt their lesson about Ireland? Can they not yet see that a Provisional Government, which is not able to eject a small handful of men from the Four Courts in Dublin and Kilmainham Gaol, is totally unable to govern 3,500,000 souls in the 26 counties? Have the Government not yet learnt their lesson about Ireland? How many more murders must be committed in Ireland before the Government realise the true situation of that country? We are dealing to-night with the question of officers and men. May I suggest that some Cabinet Minister should go over to Ireland, and, if necessary, beseech the Provisional Government to grant the lives of our soldiers in that
country? [An HON. MEMBER: "Send all the Ministers."] If, as may be the case— and God forbid!—these three officers have already been murdered, on what body of men lies the responsibility for their lives? As I see it, the whole world is looking on at the present moment at a manifestation of incompetence, and, if I may be allowed in this House to say so, of cowardice, which will surely bear fruit in all the other parts of our great Empire. Therefore, I would ask the Government, as they are responsible for the lives of these poor men who are ordered to remain in Ireland, not at the request of Mr. Collins, not for purposes of law and order, not at the beseechings of the War Office—I would ask the Government who are responsible for their lives to take some action which will insure their lives.

Captain Viscount CURZON: I speak to-night as an ex-service man in this House, and I do not in the least understand, after the two able speeches to which we have listened, what reply the Government can possibly made. There is one thing I would ask them to do, and that is, as was suggested by the hon. and gallant Field-Marshal, do, for Heaven's sake, one of you—I do not care which—go over to Ireland in person, and get in touch. You will not do anything by making representations to the Provisional Government by means of the cable. Let them prove that the Government have, as we know they have, the courage of their convictions. Let them be men, and find out over there for themselves what is happening. Nothing is more disgraceful than to see a Government here in Westminster make representations to a Provisional Government, and dare not go over there for themselves and see what is happening. You may say it is unnecessary, because you can get members of the Provisional Government to come over here. Can you? Have you any assurance from them that they have any power to carry out your representations? They have not. Then, why make representations to them? We were told the other day in this House that the Irish Republican Army at Macroom, where these three officers and one driver were captured, does not acknowledge the Provisional Government. Then why make representations to them? What is the good of it?
The only thing to do is to make up your minds, Are you going to enforce law
and order, or are you going to give the country to anarchy? But for goodness sake tell the country where we stand. This motor-driver may be one of my constituents. I find the greatest possible difficulty in putting questions in this House about this case. I tried to put a question about the troops in Ireland today, and I was told I could not put it as a Private Notice question. It must go on the Paper, and I am not sure it will pass the Table. I beg the Government to let the country know where they stand, because every Englishmen worthy of the name is ashamed of the state of affairs going on in Ireland. We hope for the best. We cannot go back on what has been done so far, but what we can do is to provide for the future, and I beg the Government to do what they can, and what lies in their power, to safeguard the lives of our soldiers, and, indeed, of some of our sailors, too, in Ireland.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: I only rise to ask the Leader of the House to say something in his reply as to the reasons why we agreed to withdraw all our troops from Ireland before the Provisional Government had really established themselves in force. If we were going to make an agreement with rebels in Ireland, which I voted against, and would vote against again if I had the opportunity, it was not fair to hand over the government of a country like Ireland, with three and a half million people, to expect a Government to be formed and begun, and, at the same time, take away all the men by which law and order were preserved. Surely it was necessary to have some intervening time, to say that there should be at least a year or some time like it, during which the Provisional Government should have time to raise a police force to take the place of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which we have been engaged in disbanding this afternoon, and to raise an armed force to back up the police, to have garrisons at certain places, and so on. It was not fair to the Provisional Government. What we should like to know from the Leader of the House, if he can tell us, is why the Government of this country agreed to allow the Provisional Government to take over Ireland on the condition that we were to withdraw our troops at once. They must have known, even if Mr.
Collins and his collaborators did not know, having been engaged in governing the oldest country in the British Empire, that it would be utterly impossible for any Government to carry on without a proper police force, and troops, and garrisons to support that police force. That being so, why did they agree to withdraw troops in Ireland before the Provisional Government had made the necessary rearrangements?
As it is, what we now see is that the Provisional Government—and we give them credit for what they have said they are wishful to do in regard to the matter—are trying to enforce law and order, to do their best in this regard, to arrest the men who have committed murders since the truce, to protect the loyalists, but to what effect? Mr. Collins has issued a magniloquent manifesto, granting an amnesty to those who fought against the so-called Irish Republic, and so on. I give the Provisional Government credit for really meaning what they say, but it is a fact that they have been unable to do any of these things. Even in Dublin itself, as has been pointed out by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Down (Sir H. Wilson), they cannot turn out the men who have seized some of the most important buildings in the City. In other parts of the country they have got absolutely no power whatever. The insurgent Irish Republican Army are turning out disbanded constabulary who have gone back to live peaceably at their own homes; loyalists are being turned out by these insurgents. I read out cases this afternoon in which disbanded Irish constables were ordered out of Ireland by men who had taken over the local barracks on behalf of the Provisional Government. While apparently acting on behalf of the Provisional Government they are driving out men of the Royal Irish Constabulary who have been disbanded, and who have been promised protection by the Provisional Government itself. The whole of the chaos which exists in Ireland to-day is due, not only to some other obvious causes, but to the insurgency that existed before the truce, but is due at this moment principally to the action of the Government signing an agreement by which to withdraw the forces which are the only forces, whatever Government is in power, by which law and order can be maintained in any country at any time. I trust the right hon. Gen-
tleman in his reply will say a few words to explain why it is that this state of affairs should have arisen.

Mr. LANE-FOX: I hope very much that the Government will be able to clear up some of the doubts which are strongly felt by some of its best supporters.

Mr. GRITTEN: They ought to be ashamed to be its supporters in this matter.

Mr. LANE-FOX: Recent events have constituted a very serious strain upon loyalty. What has caused this? Three officers have been kidnapped. Probably in any other country in the world if that had happened there would have been an ultimatum to the Government of that country, and it might have been followed by actual war at once, unless some reparation or restitution was made. I admit that the circumstances in relation to Ireland make the thing exceedingly difficult, but this House does require an assurance—and I earnestly hope the Government will be in a position to give it—that they have taken really serious action so that it may be represented to the world, and not only to the Irish people, that British officers cannot be kidnapped in this way; that for the strength and dignity of this country—to put it merely on that ground—this cannot be allowed to go on. It is idle to pretend that there is no responsibility on the Government in relation to the troops. I hope that at a very early moment some speaker on behalf of the Government will give the assurance the House so earnestly wishes. This is a matter on which some of us who support the Government most loyally cannot continue to give that support unless it can be shown by proof that the difficulties are insuperable and that the Government have made every possible effort to get over them. I am quite certain that the loyal supporters of the Government would not ask them to do anything impossible. All they ask is that proof shall be given to the House that sincerely, honestly, and with courage they are prepared to face the responsibility thrown upon them. If the Government can give that assurance, they can rely upon the loyalty of their supporters.

Mr. INSKIP: The House, I think, has been anxious to hear what the right hon.
Gentleman the Leader of the House, or the Government speaker, has to say on this question. Everybody has witnessed the reluctance of hon. Members to intervene in this Debate in the absence of that full information which the House has a right to expect from the Government as to the steps which are being taken. My hon. Friend has voiced the opinion of a great many when he says that, in the absence of some sort of assurance, we shall find ourselves in a difficulty in supporting the Government. For myself, I have not intervened at an earlier stage because I felt sure that at the earliest moment the Government would give us that information which would allay our doubts and correct our lack of knowledge so that we might be comforted in the support which we are anxious to give to the Government. Many of us on these and on the opposite benches supported the Government in enacting the Bill to approve of the Irish Treaty. We realise that the Provisional Government and our own Government are in difficulties during the transitional period in Ireland, and we realise that questions must arise which would perplex anybody, but the great principle which emerges on all these occasions, surely, is, that whatever difficulties present themselves the security of a British subject must be preserved. I recall words, which many hon. Members will recollect, which were used in this House on a famous occasion by Lord Palmerston, who said:
A British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against any injustice and wrong.
It would be intolerable if the safety of the British subject were to be less respected in a part of the King's dominions than in a foreign country. It may be asked—What right have the Government to interfere at the present time? It may be said that the constitutional difficulties are insuperable, and having transferred their powers to the Provisional Government of the Free State it is impossible for our Ministers to intervene. I do not take that view. My information is necessarily imperfect, but taking our information as it is, some of us hold the opinion that the Government might have done more. We may not know all that has been done, but let us know at the earliest moment what has been done, and what representations have been addressed
to the Provisional Government. Let us know the full force which is behind the words that have been used in order that the Provisional Government may understand that these British subjects, these British officers, are under the protection of our Government wherever they may go, or wherever they may be.
The matter is not without precedent. There are hon. Members in this House who will remember a Debate which I remember as a member of the public and not as a Member of this House early in 1906, shortly after the Liberal Government came into power, in connection with a very grave interference with the administration of the Government of Natal. The interference which then took place, which was severely criticised in some parts of the House because Lord Elgin as Secretary of State for the Colonies had intervened to prevent the execution of a number of natives who had murdered British police officers. The Government of Natal had gone so far as to permit the execution of these natives, but instead of leaving it to the internal administration of the Government of Natal, our Government addressed a direction to the Governor that the execution of those natives should be suspended until our Government, and not the Natal Government, was satisfied that the proper forms of law had been observed.
9.0 P.M.
These, are the words which the present Secretary of State for the Colonies used in relation to what he conceived to be the duty of this House to protect even South African natives if we were not sure that they were being accorded the justice which is the right of a British citizen. On the 2nd of April, 1906, the right hon. Gentleman, then Under-Secretary for the Colonies, said:
I am not going to attempt to plunge into the mazes of a constitutional argument as to the relation of the mother country with the Colonies … but I cannot accept on behalf of the Government for one moment the doctrine that we have absolutely no responsibility.
But the right hon. Gentleman used even more emphatic words as to our duty with regard to these 12 natives. He said:
We should not be deterred from possessing ourselves beforehand of all that information on these grave matters which we are bound to possess if we are to do our duty by the native races,—
It is that grave duty which I now call upon the Government to fulfil. Continuing, the right hon. Gentleman said:
If we are to do our duty by the native races, who are after all British subjects, who after all look to the Throne for protection, and to whose well being while they are under the national flag, no one who regards the honour and, indeed, the safety of his country can be indifferent.
Those were striking words to be used by a Minister of the Crown with regard to native subjects in so far off a country as South Africa. If we apply those words to these officers and British subjects who, across a narrow channel, have been taken probably to their death, we can appreciate the gravity of the situation, and we can use the words which the right- hon. Gentleman used, and say not only the honour of the country, but the safety of the country begins to be in danger. I do not suppose the right hon. Gentleman will say that the Government have no responsibility. He may say that they have a responsibility, but that they will do nothing more than address a communication to the Provisional Government. At any rate let us know what has been said and what replies have been received. Let us know what the Provisional Government have to say as to the extent of their powers to protect these officers. If the Government say they have no responsibility, or having responsibility they can do nothing effective, that will indeed be a sorrowful confession, and if that is the case, then I venture to say that the proud tradition of the security of the British subject will be an unhappy memory and the greatest possession which this House has ever given up.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): I hope that no hon. Member will think that I was slow to respond because I did not rise to speak the moment my hon. Friend (Mr. Gwynne) had moved and the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir Henry Wilson) had seconded the Motion for the Adjournment. I had undertaken to answer on behalf of the Government, and I hope I was not unreasonable in thinking that it was only fair that I should hoar the Debate develop, in order to know the character of the criticisms which I had to meet. Therefore I did not want to exhaust my right to speak at the very beginning of the Debate, when other aspects might be developed and other criticisms brought forward in the time that remained. I should like to have
waited a little longer, in order to be more fully possessed of the views and anxieties of all sections of the House, but after listening to the speeches which have been made I did not like to delay any longer.
Let me say at once that I have no sort of criticism to offer in regard to the con-duet of my hon. Friend in bringing a matter of this kind before the House, or of requiring from the Government an explanation of its attitude. Neither can I make any criticism of the language in which he introduced and supported his Motion. He spoke with a moderation, with an absence of passion, which is not incompatible with a profound emotion, and which I hope others who take part in this Debate will be able to equal in any observations that they make. What has taken place in Ireland, illustrated by the kidnapping of these three officers and the soldier who was driving them, and by other events more certainly tragic in their conclusion, stirs the hearts of us all, makes us profoundly anxious and uncomfortable, and, I think, might easily lead us, in the depth of the feelings which such savage and lawless deeds arouse, to commit blunders of statecraft and policy that might prejudice all issues which lie between Ireland and this country and the future of both our communities. I wish that I could give to the House information about these officers and the soldier who accompanied them. We have done our best to get news of their whereabouts, and we have failed. Immediately on news reaching us, a communication was sent to the Provisional Government, the gravity of the incident was pointed out to them, and steps were taken to impress upon them their duty to do everything in their power to secure the immediate release of these officers, and, on the part of our representatives, to gain information about them.
Since my hon. Friend gave notice of his Motion to-day, I have been trying to gather the latest information. My only regret, on the occasion of this Debate, is that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies is not present. I regret it, not merely on personal grounds, either as regards himself or me, but because, as he has been the Minister immediately concerned in all our relations with the Provisional Government, he would have been in a better position
to deal with this incident in its relation to the whole than I, who have not had the daily and constant touch with the subject which he has had, and whose information, therefore, in regard to a good many details, has to be acquired rather for the purposes of the Debate, and is not the result of daily experience and knowledge. The House will excuse me if I am not, therefore, quite as perfect in the story that I tell of events, or in my capacity to give information, as my right hon. Friend would have been. As I have said, since I had notice of the Debate I have been trying to get the latest information. I have a message from Ireland that General Macready and Colonel Brind went yesterday and interviewed the British officer who is conducting the inquiry, in connection with the disappearance of the three officers, with the Sinn Feiners. They also saw the Sinn Fein representatives—the representatives both of those who are loyal in their adherence to the Provisional Government and those who have disavowed its authority and are in open resistance to it. Both assured these officers that they had no further news of the officers concerned, and that they knew nothing of their fate. Both sides gave to General Macready and the officer who accompanied him the assurance that every possible step was being taken to unravel the mystery. General Macready, I am informed, is inclined to think that genuine efforts are being made by both sides—that is to say, both Irish parties, those who support the Provisional Government and those who are opposed to it—to ascertain what really happened to the officers.
Hon. Gentlemen who have spoken have asked me various questions, directed, sometimes, from entirely opposite standpoints. One hon. Member asked me why any troops are withdrawn from Ireland. Another hon. Member asked me why any troops are kept in Ireland. My hon. Friend who moved the Motion asked why small bodies of troops were kept in exposed positions. My hon. and gallant Friend, who seconded, stated, quite correctly, that small bodies of troops in exposed positions had all been withdrawn, and that the troops had been concentrated, I think, in Dublin or in Cork, though, like him, I am uncertain whether there may not still be some more troops at the Curragh. Those troops are in process of ordinary evacuation from Ire-
land, but, in the present unsettled conditions, does my hon. Friend or does my hon. and gallant Friend really think that it would be desirable that we should take special steps to hasten the departure of these bodies of troops that still remain in Dublin or in Cork? I must say, for my part, that I think it would be desirable that, while the position is still as it is, while there is so much to give rise to anxiety and care, those positions should not be wholly left, and that we should still have some British troops in that part of Ireland, or that, at any rate, we should not carry out the evacuation faster than we had originally intended. The troops, however, are concentrated in these two, or, at most, three areas. They are not in scattered bodies. Where they were exposed, they were ordered by General Macready, a little before Easter, to observe all military precautions. The precautions observed before the signature of the Treaty were to be resumed at once. I do not think my hon. Friend supposed that these officers, when kidnapped, were actually on military duty. I understand that they left Cork to visit friends in the Macroom area, that they visited one friend, that they then proceeded to Macroom, and that in all probability, I think almost as a certainty, it was in Macroom that they were captured.

Sir W. BARTON: Were they wearing the King's uniform?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No. They were not on duty at the time, but were intending to pay a private visit to certain friends of theirs when they were captured.

Mr. GWYNNE: Was the driver in uniform?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I presume he was. My answer to my hon. Friend, therefore, is that in the first place we have taken the precaution of concentrating the troops and not leaving them in scattered and isolated bodies, and in the second place, shortly before Easter the Commander-in-Chief had issued instructions that they were to observe all military precautions. Of course, you cannot confine officers and men to barracks for an unlimited time, but, short of making life intolerable, they were ordered to observe all military precautions for their security, the situation being considered dangerous. Then my hon. Friend suggests that these outrages are committed by the men who
were held here and released, in some cases with no charges preferred against them. I think he is mistaken in supposing that these outrages are in the main committed by the men who were most prominent in the fighting against us, and he is certainly mistaken if he assumes that all those who fought against us and suffered at our hands in fighting against us are now our bitter enemies or wish to pursue a vendetta. [An HON. MEMBER: "He did not say so."] My hon. Friend will himself correct me if I misrepresent him, which he knows I am not anxious to do. I am not anxious in a matter of this kind to make debating points against him or anyone. I am anxious to tell the House what is the position as far as I know it and to satisfy their desire for information. It would be a mistake if he attributes these outrages in particular to the men who were released, or even supposes that those who were most prominent in fighting against us when we were fighting are necessarily the men who are guilty of the hideous outrages which have disgraced Ireland since the signature of the Treaty.

Mr. GWYNNE: I merely pointed out that one of the dangers which our troops are in was the release of thousands of men whom we had confined in gaol here, and that naturally they might be expected to seek revenge on our officers.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think that is not so, and I think some of those men who were released have been amongst the stoutest defenders of the Treaty or agreement which was signed. I have just received the information that the military driver of the car was not in uniform any more than the officers whom he was driving. Thai; is the best information the War Office has got. My hon. Friend asked whether we do not think this experiment has been tried long enough, and whether we ought not to tell the Provisional Government at once that we are now going to take other steps. I think that is the real issue before the House to-night, and a graver issue we could not have to consider and decide. Our hearts are all on one side, but we must consult our heads as well as our hearts before we take an irrevocable decision on a question of vital importance, on a question which involves on the one side patience under great provocation in pursuing through a period of extra-
ordinary, but as we hope, temporary, difficulty, the peace effort which we initiated last year, and which this House approved last year and reapproved and affirmed this year, or whether we are now, under the impression of horror derived from this or that murder, this or that kidnapping, to throw the experiment up here and now, to declare the Treaty at an end, to step in, to reassume the duty of preserving law and order and the whole responsibility of Government in the 26 counties of Ireland.
That is really the issue that is before the House to-night. I feel deeply and profoundly about these outrages. I am not less moved, because I have other responsibilities, by thoughts of the sufferings of their relatives. I am not less moved by the thought of what we owe to these men and of our impotence to pay our debt to them. I could make with a full heart the speeches which I have heard from hon. Members, but I beg the House to think of the larger issue and even, amidst the pain and anguish that exists, to keep its eyes fixed on the great result which may yet be obtained, which I think will be obtained, which the great majority of the House has twice on set occasions expressed its desire to obtain, and which, if obtained, will mean an accession of unity to the Empire, of strength and influence to the British name, and the extension of peace not in Ireland alone, but throughout all the countries where the English language is spoken such as no other single act of statesmanship could give. All that is in the balance. I understand hon. Members who voted against it, I understand hon. Members who from the first thought this policy wrong, who believed that it would fail, that, if it succeeded, success would be almost more dangerous than failure, I understand hon. Members who take that view seizing upon any incident and using it to bring the experiment to an end. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!" and "Withdraw!" Other HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]

Rear-Admiral Sir R. HALL rose—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Will my hon. Friends allow me? I think they see that I am not attempting to say anything—

Viscount CURZON: No one of us said that!

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: —which is offensive. Let me put my thought in different words, words which, I hope, will give no offence. The subject is far too big to be prejudiced by the clumsiness of a speaker—[HON. MEMBERS: "Not the Leader of the House!"]—the subject is far too big to be prejudiced by the clumsiness of any speaker, in a speech which hon. Members will recognise is necessarily unprepared and impromptu. Hon. Members will believe me when I say that I am seeking to put my case without offence to anyone. Let me try to put my thought in this way. I understand men who thought this wrong, who from the first have thought and urged that, even if temporarily it succeeded, success would lead to ultimate and worse failure, and in that sense would be even more disastrous than failure; I can understand those people being convinced—they needed no conviction—but being reinforced in their conviction, that it is a mistake we ought never to have committed, and that having committed it we ought to reverse it at the first moment at which we can do so. I can understand that, but what I cannot understand, and what I hope is not the case, is that the great majority of the House who wanted the experiment and approved its initiation, who after some months' interval passed the Act establishing the Provisional Government, should at once, because neither they nor we can restore peace or order in this unhappy country, immediately abandon the hope, go back on their own policy and renounce it, with all the prospect in the light of which they and we went into the Lobby together in support of this Measure. By the Act of this House and of Parliament we have transferred the primary responsibility for law and order, the protection of life, and the protection of property in Southern Ireland, to the Provisional Government just as much as we have transferred the same responsibility in the six counties to the Government of Northern Ireland. Theirs is that duty, and they acknowledge it, but it would be idle to pretend, for them or for me to pretend, that throughout all the 26 counties at this moment they have the power to discharge all the elementary duties of all civilised Governments. But the Provisional Government has shown in all its communications an earnest desire to give
this protection, a profound regret for these outrages which have been committed, and a willingness to do all that lies within its power in order to right the wrongs and bring the criminals to justice.

Mr. GWYNNE: With what result?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Not without success in some cases. There are a good many cases. There are cases where property wrongfully seized has been returned in whole or in part. There are some eases, at any rate, where men threatened and ordered to leave the country, as described by my hon. Friend and as is within the knowledge of us all, have been successfully protected by the Provisional Government against those threats; and though this Motion arises especially on these three kidnapped officers, I know the minds of Members, and sometimes in their speeches they go back to other incidents of recent occurrence which are part of the same reign of disorder and of tyranny, and which influence their judgment. Take the murders of those Protestants in the Dunmanway district the other day. I think I have here some illustrations of the way in which these outrages were treated by the Provisional Government. The following statement was printed in the "Freeman" of the 29th April:
In connection with the murders in Dunmanway, Ballineen, and Clonakilty the Cabinet of Dail Eireamn issued the following last evening: 'The Dail Cabinet desires to express its abhorrence of the murders committed in South Cork. Every effort is being made to bring the culprits-to justice, and all the resources of the Dail and of the Provisional Government will be used to that end. It is appreciated that certain elements in the community'"—
and I beg the House to mark this, which is profoundly true and the essence of the present situation—
'It is appreciated that certain elements in the community are taking advantage of the present transitional period in Ireland to wreak private vengeance in the hope that under the unsettled conditions they may escape justice. It is the first concern of the Dail and of the Provisional Government to secure their capture and trial. Every good citizen is exhorted to assist in apprehending the murderers of innocent people. The Irish nation consists of no one class or creed. It combines all, and whosoever injures or seeks to injure a fellow citizen because of his class or creed is an enemy of the nation, and will be treated by the Government as such.
To put down outrage and murder and to ensure to every citizen security and personal liberty is the prime duty of Governments. So far as power resides in our hands we shall assert this duty, and we are confident that all true Irishmen will assist us in so doing.'

Sir T. POLSON: Who was that? De Valera and the other fellow?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: In the organ, "The Free State," supporting the Provisional Government, they wrote as follows. I quote this because there is in the mind of some hon. Gentlemen an idea that no effort is being made by the Provisional Government to bring murderers to justice. It is one thing to say that the Provisional Government are indifferent or that they connive, and it is another thing to say that they have no power.

Mr. GWYNNE: Is it not the fact that the Provisional Government did not punish any criminals, and that even in those cases where convictions were obtained they were released the next day?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I asked my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, but he could not give any information which would confirm the hon. Member's statement. "The Free State," the organ of the Provisional Government, writes:
It is a stain on the glory of Cork that such unspeakable deeds should be done when the custody of life is in the hands of the people themselves. It is a sad and bitter reproach to all Ireland, and it is not rendered the less bitter because it is only one startling and concentrated flashlight on the many semi-political murders that are being committed up and down the country week after week. We must be honest and courageous with ourselves and not hide from ourselves the fact that our war has produced the aftermath of moral chaos that all wars always produce, and we should take all these frightful crimes as a lesson that Peace is the way of life and should be chosen except in the last extremity in preference to war. We need not let ourselves be swept away in an unintelligent reaction, but we must, every one of us and not only Governments or parties, make up our minds that we must have peace and that murder must stop. Ireland looks to the people of Cork to show that they are decent Christians by dealing justly with the perpetrators of this crime.
I cite this, and I might cite other protests to show that the Provisional Government has denounced actively and strongly, in language that we ourselves should use, the perpetrators of these crimes, and, in
such language as we ourselves should use in similar circumstances, they have declared their determination to pursue and to bring to justice the perpetrators.
Now I come to the question of ability. I would ask the House to remember the difficulties under which the Provisional Government work. They are a Provisional Government. The Treaty which we signed with their representatives in London has not yet been submitted to the mass of the Irish people. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] It is believed, and I believe, that the vast mass of the Irish people are in favour of its acceptance, and that a growing proportion recognise that the majority are in favour of acceptance and that the will of the majority should prevail. In the meantime, however, a section of the old Irish Republican Army or of new recruits who have joined it, are in revolt against the Provisional Government. They have denounced its authority, and the Provisional Government has not yet been able to establish its authority throughout the country. At this moment negotiations between the two parties have been resumed. I do not know whether they will be successful. We may be on the eve of a very critical situation which may result in a real clash at any moment in Ireland between the forces supporting the Provisional Government and the forces who are resisting it. Under these circumstances is it always possible for the Provisional Government, throughout all Ireland, in districts where their authority has not yet been established and where they have not yet the power or the force to establish it, to ensure justice, to prevent crime or to bring the perpetrators of crime to justice?
After all, there have been in other places other murders, and the prevention of the crime and the detection of the criminals and the bringing of them to justice has not proved so easy a task. Have we a right to impute apathy or connivance to the Provisional Government because, in their extraordinarily difficult position, they have not yet been able to establish order? I do not desire to speak with too great optimism, but I believe and I profoundly hope that the power of the Provisional Government, which is a Government of peace and of good will, is growing and that, given a
little time, they will get a clear mandate from the Irish people and will establish their authority throughout the whole of the twenty-six counties; and that, with the establishment of their authority, they will bring back justice and put down crime. They cannot do it all at once.
Then my hon. Friends ask me, "Will not the British Government act?" My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Inskip) quoted a famous and rather rhetorical passage of Lord Palmerston, and then became as eloquent and almost as rhetorical as the model which he had taken. If a foreign Government does not try to protect our subjects, we should take strong action, but if a foreign Government is doing its best to protect our subjects and to bring those who have wronged them to justice then, because that country at the moment is in a state of rebellion, emerging from a civil war and verging on another, we should not go to war with them. I do not see, therefore, why we should have less patience and consideration with the Provisional Government of Ireland. [Interruption.] I think the House will see that I am trying to cover the ground, but hon. Members are so anxious that I should always deal with the point to which I have not yet come. If I get as favourable attention as the criticisms with which I am dealing at the moment received, I shall feel more confidence, when I come, to deal with the points which they desire, that they will pay any attention to what I say.
That is the position. "Why do you not do something?" asks an hon. Member. I ask the House very seriously to consider, very gravely to consider, what is happening. We have no police force in Ireland with which we can help these officers. [Interruption.] If my hon. Friend will permit me, I am not now dealing with the past or trying to justify the past.

Sir W. DAVISON: You are responsible for it.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am responsible for it. I stand here to-day twice challenged in the House by the hon. Member and others. I stand here with my responsibility covered and approved, my action endorsed by a great majority—

Mr. HOWARD GRITTEN: How was that majority composed?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: —of the party which was good enough to place its confidence in me and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law). The great majority of the party to which the hon. Member used to belong—

Sir F. BANBURY: We belong to it. You have deserted it.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: —supported the action which the Government took.

Sir H. CRAIK: Did you ask us before you took it?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not going to justify my action in the past—action which the House has approved. That is not relevant to the subject of our Debate this evening, except in so far as the action taken by the Government in the past, and embodied by Parliament in the Act establishing the Provisional Government, limits our rights or our powers to act at this moment. I am not asking the House to discuss again the question, nor am I asking my hon. Friends to try again the question of whether we were right in signing the Treaty. We are not asking whether we should give the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act a Second Reading or a Third Reading. We arc asking whether the Government ought to take and could take effectively some steps at this moment, in the circumstances in which we now stand, which would cause the release of these officers or give greater protection to the lives of those who are serving us in Ireland. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Down (Sir H. Wilson) spoke quietly, but in strong language. He talked of our incompetence. That is a charge which is brought against every Government and every Minister. I invite my hon. and gallant Friend and my other hon. Friends to consider what the Government could do, and what the consequences would be.

Mr. ERSKINE: Go to Ireland.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Does anybody think that my colleagues are deterred from going to Ireland by personal cowardice? Surely the House does not believe such a thing. If anyone of us thought that we could be more effective by going over to Ireland at this moment, of course, we
would go gladly. That suggestion really is unworthy. I am asking my hon. Friends and those who support them in this demand that we should take some Steps, owing to the admitted inability of the Provisional Government to give protection in all parts of Ireland, to consider what their advice tends to, and what must be the inevitable results of their advice.

Sir H. WILSON: May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that, as he has admitted the inability to look after our soldiers, he should take a further step, and that is to withdraw the soldiers.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think my hon. and gallant Friend is quite fair. These soldiers were not kidnapped while on duty. I have already put it to the House that the question of withdrawing troops from Cork or from any other part of Ireland is one that must be reviewed from time to time, and is so reviewed. We concentrate the troops in two places; we have not left them scattered about unprotected, but for reasons I have given we think it would be undesirable to hasten the process of evacuation on which we have decided in the present unsettled condition of Ireland. I suspect that if we had withdrawn the troops my hon. and gallant Friend would not have been the last person to criticise us for that action. I ask the House to consider that we no longer have control of the constabulary. We no longer have in every village, in every town, in every city, police, and in many places up and down the country military assistance at their backs if they require it. We have deliberately, and the House with us, transferred this primary responsibility to the Provisional Government. My belief is that the Provisional Government are doing their best to exercise it. I believe that presently they will be able to exercise it fully, and will give this protection.
Do you want us to step in at this moment and say to the Provisional Government: "You have failed. The thing is at an end. The Provisional Government is at an end. We come in to restore law and order." If you want that, that is what every enemy of the Treaty in Southern Ireland, every supporter of Mr. De Valera against Mr. Collins and Mr. Griffith is praying that they may induce us or compel us to do. These outrages are largely committed by
men as hostile to the Treaty as my hon. and gallant Friend himself, but far less scrupulous in their methods of attack. They are as hostile as my hon. and gallant Friend, but they are wholly unscrupulous in their methods of attack. They want to bring the British Government once more into the struggle in order that they may represent the struggle, not as it is now between Irishmen who are in favour of peace within the British Empire, and in favour of law and order within their own country and under their own Government, and men who are disputing and agitating against both these ends; they want to bring back again the old struggle between this country and Ireland.
For Heaven's sake, with all our bitter memories, with all our failures, and with all our ill-success, do let us give the Provisional Government a chance before we decide that there is nothing for it but to return to the old weary way of trying to dragoon Ireland into peace. I do not want to underrate the anxieties of the present moment or to palliate or excuse any crimes which have been committed, but I do put it to the House that they will not save the lives of loyal subjects in Ireland and they will not save the lives of soldiers by recommencing what must be a civil war, and that if they will not give the Provisional Government a reasonable opportunity to establish its authority, after these years of revolution and of crime, they have no other course open but to go back to where we were on the day when the negotiations were first begun, resume the old warfare, raise the additional men which are necessary to carry it out and, at a loss of life considerably greater and accompanied by an amount of crime not less than before, to fight out the struggle to a bitter finish that will end in subjection but not in reconciliation.

Colonel GRETTON: The right hon. Gentleman has taunted my hon. and gallant Friend with making use of the word "cowardice." There is such a thing as moral cowardice. That was the charge which was brought against the Government. What is the issue raised in this Debate? Three officers have been kidnapped in Ireland. What are the Government doing to ascertain what their fate is, and, if possible, to rescue them? We have had no answer. We are told
that there is no news, and the Government to-night have not assisted the House We repudiate the charge, which the right hon. Gentleman brought against the hon. Members who moved and seconded this Motion, and others who have taken part in the Debate, that we have used this occasion to raise the whole Irish Question as a shuttlecock in some game of politics. I hope that our position in this House is known to be more straightforward than the right; hon. Gentleman appears to think.
10.0 P.M.
We do not play, and do not intend to play, some game of double shuffle with the lives of His Majesty's subjects. Far from it. The Debate was raised honestly and straightforwardly to obtain information and, if possible, an assurance from His Majesty's Government. We have had none. Does the right hon. Gentleman, who has drawn a red herring across the path, say that in desiring to take action to secure the lives of soldiers and British subjects in Ireland we are raising the whole Irish Question? I would remind the House that the position which has now arisen is one which the Government has done much to create. How much are you going to stand? Are you going to stand meekly, helplessly, appealing, supplicatingly, in face of every outrage and every crime? Where is this inaction going to stop? Do you not think that the time has come when you might show some more firmness, and indicate your firmness to both parties in Ireland? I do not think that the division is so wide between those parties in Ireland as the right hon. Gentleman appears to indicate. Do you not think that you might in all fairness to the Irish people indicate to them that in certain eventualities they will destroy the Treaty and make intervention inevitable? The only firmness which the right hon. Gentleman shows is to threaten Members of this House with what the consequences would be if they should unhappily vote against His Majesty's Government tonight. The issues to-night are greater and wider than the right hon. Gentleman has chosen to indicate. Is this House always to stand inert in the face of every insult in Ireland to British soldiers and servants of the Crown?
This case to-night is not an isolated one. There are civilians who have been lost, whose lives certainly are in as great
danger as the lives of those officers. We have not raised the whole question. We have been careful to confine ourselves to one issue. The right hon. Gentleman says that we tried to raise the whole Irish Question. If we had thought that that would be in order on this occasion, we should have come down prepared to face the wider issue. Now we are prepared to do so. Will the right hon. Gentleman give us a day to go into the whole position in Ireland—not merely one incident such as may be raised on the Motion for Adjournment at a, quarter past eight, tout all the Irish position as it stands to-day? We want to press His Majesty's Government as to what they are going to do to deal with the situation. Ireland to-day is in a stage of chaos and disorder. Government troops are still there exposed to danger and outrage. If they move from their quarters they are exposed to kidnapping or other violence. Surely it is a military axiom that if you have troops in a country they must be allowed to defend themselves or be removed. If they are not allowed to defend themselves they are useless, and merely a target for insults and a source of weakness. If the Government do not intend to use these troops they should withdraw them.
The Government have not told us why they are there. They are there because the, Government do not think it wise at present to withdraw them. Do the Government intend to lend them to the Provisional Government to restore order? We have not been told. I press the Leader of the House to allow someone on the Front Bench to answer that question. The position is profoundly unsatisfactory. We have heard nothing from the Government as to what can be done for the safety and welfare of the officers who have been kidnapped. That is the issue of the Debate. The Government can give us no assurance whatever. They profess complete ignorance and helplessness. As to the future, they indicate that incidents of this kind may multiply to an extent to which they place no limit. They say the Provisional Government must have a chance. There are two sides to any Treaty. Surely the statesmanlike and correct thing is for the Government to indicate that if the Provisional Government fails to carry out its side of the bargain the Treaty will be null and void, a new situation will be created, and
action will be taken by the Government accordingly. Nothing which the right hon. Gentleman has said can be satisfactory to any party in the House, and unless some other Minister can get up and give us that satisfaction, we shall be obliged to ask the House to express its opinion on the situation.

Mr. AUBREY HERBERT: If it is not presumptuous, I would like to thank the Leader of the House for what has fallen from his lips. His speech was a clear, strong, and magnanimous answer to the criticisms that have come from the opposite benches. This Debate, is concerned with the kidnapping of three British officers, who may possibly lose their lives. That must appeal straight to the hearts of every Member of this House, and especially to the hearts of those who have served in the Forces. I ask the House to consider how those officers would be helped, supposing there was an adverse vote against the Government to-night. What is the exact position in which we stand? The actual position is that, for better or worse we have had a Treaty approved by a very great majority of the House. There is to be an election in Ireland in a very short time, and if the Provisional Government wins, it will have at its back a mandate which it has not now. Meanwhile, there will be a state of disorder, with violence, murder, and plunder, that you must have in every country which is going through that transition stage. It is obvious what Mr. de Valera wants to do. He is anxious for one or both of two things. One is to discredit the Provisional Government, which he can do by having these various officers of ours in mufti kidnapped. The second thing, and that he will probably desire even more, is to bring us back to reconquer Ireland. If we do that now, we merely confirm the chaos existing in Ireland and put a British stamp on it.
When friends of mine, like my Noble Friend the Member for South Battersea (Viscount Curzon) beside me, take the attitude they have adopted, I wonder whether they realise what that attitude must mean to the outside world. Surely all that they are doing is this: They are standing for the forces of reaction in this country and playing into the hands of the forces of disorder in Ireland. From their lips nothing constructive has fallen to-night. One suggestion which
my Noble Friend reiterated several times was that a member of the Cabinet should go to Ireland. In the War many of us who happened to be abroad wanted members of the Cabinet to be in the trenches, because we would have liked to have seen some of them shot. That was an intelligible but not a reasoned point of view at the moment. The function of the House of Commons is to legislate. Its function is not to go to any part of the world where there is trouble. There is trouble at the moment in Palestine. Does my Noble Friend want to send the Cabinet to Jericho? Then there is my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Down (Sir H. Wilson). He made a more definite suggestion. It was that the troops should be withdrawn from Ireland. You have had this Treaty passed, for good or evil, by the majority of this House. Once this House determines to sanction the policy of the Government, the Government must be given a certain margin of authority in very difficult circumstances. Without any offence to my hon. and gallant Friend the Field Marshal, I say that if I had been an officer and, at the same time, a Member of this House, I am sure that he, as my superior officer, would not have allowed me to criticise the Government in their executive function.
I want to make two other points. There are Members of this House who, consciously or unconsciously, want us once again to involve ourselves in Irish politics. There is one mentality with which I have been familiar for many years, and which I once had myself, and it is this: There are many of us who would rather see ourselves opposed by a real enemy of this country than by a moderate man who wants to come to terms. That is very easy to understand. In the past this country has always had such a big balance at the bank of power that it was easy for us to afford any enmity, because we could always smash it. To-day we have so many commitments that, putting aside the morality of that attitude, that is no longer a easy thing for us to do. When we meet with conciliation wherever it might be, we ought to stretch out our hands to it.
The Leader of the House said that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gwynne), had initiated this Debate in very moderate and quiet language. That is absolutely true, and my hon.
Friend is a man who speaks purely from conscience, but all the same, at the back of that quiet and humble appeal, which he made to-night, there does lie an appeal to passion, and passion, to-day, only breeds passion. This is not really an appeal for the three officers who have been kidnapped. There is not one of us who would not do anything we could for the officers, but at the actual moment we can do nothing violent to help these men. To a man like myself, and I think there are a large number of us in the House, the situation appears in this way. We have, after 700 years, given the Irish people the direction of their own affairs and we are not going to be driven into taking sides again in Ireland. We have seen quite enough to show where that policy ends. The contagion of that poison has gone right over the Empire. I think all who listened to the Leader of the House must have realised that these things are as painful to him as to any man in the House. In speaking as he did, he must make himself the target for many poisoned arrows, but I think it will be realised that he has the great body of the House behind him in the speech which he made to-night.

Sir W. DAVISON: In the few words that I address to the House, I do not propose to deal with the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down, especially as he himself said he was only emphasising what had been said by the Leader of the House. I wish, however, to refer to the speech of the Leader of the House, a speech which was remarkable in its character, and was most remarkable by reason of the fact that it dealt very little with the three officers regarding whom this Debate originated. Nor did the right hon. Gentleman, as far as I was able to hear, give the House any information as to what practical steps, if any, the Government had taken to secure the release of these three officers and their chauffeur. The only information on that subject of which I, personally, am aware, was elicited from the Chief Secretary for Ireland when I questioned him regarding the fate of these men on Monday. After a question on the Paper, and two supplementary questions, all I was able to get from the right hon. Gentleman was that after nearly three weeks' incarceration of these men, the British Government had made representations to the Provisional Government and sent to
a Roman Catholic Bishop to invoke his assistance. That is an extraordinary statement for a British Government to submit to the House of Commons as all they have been able to do when three British officers have been kidnapped. The Leader of the House in speaking to-night —I am sorry he has withdrawn—said the issue before the House was really whether we should go back on the peace effort which we had initiated, and he went on to say, "I can understand those hon. Members who have opposed this Irish Treaty from the first taking the earliest opportunity of pointing out to the House how it has failed, and how it is time some steps should be taken to withdraw from the action which the Government initiated, but I cannot understand how the great majority of the House who supported this Treaty can now go back upon the votes which they gave."
Then, again, in his speech, when I challenged him and said that he was responsible for the state of affairs which now exists in Ireland, he turned round and said, "Yes, I am responsible, but the House has on more than one occasion, by large majorities, approved that responsibility." On behalf of the House of Commons—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]— on behalf, I should say, of a considerable number of Members of the House of Commons, and a very large number of supporters of the Government outside, I say this, that they gave their support to this Treaty because of the representations which were made by the Government, and that they were misled into giving their votes for this Treaty, and I will tell the House why. We all know that the Prime Minister came down to this House and told the Members of the House of Commons that after 700 years of strife and turmoil peace had been obtained in Ireland. He told the House of Commons that we had come to a time when England's hour of adversity would no longer be Ireland's opportunity to strike her in the back, but that England's time of adversity would be Ireland's opportunity to come and help her. Therefore, I say that Members of the House of Commons, not knowing Ireland and the Irish Question as well as some of the Members who sit on this Bench know it, having lived there and having known every phase of the Irish Question for years past, were, I think, almost bound to accept—they had no
other means of judging—the statement made by the Government that they had obtained peace after all these years. Therefore, when the Leader of the House turns round and says that his responsibility was endorsed by the large majority of the House of Commons, I say that that endorsement was obtained by a false pretence.
We have had no reply to the question which was asked by the hon. and gallant Member for North Down (Sir H. Wilson). It is the same question which I took down to the Table of the House and which has been refused by the officers at the Table. The question was this: Why are British troops retained in Southern Ireland when they are forbidden to give protection to the large number of persons who are daily appealing in vain to the British Government and to the Provisional Government for protection for their lives and property? We have had no explanation of that. If we are to have troops in Ireland, we share the responsibility of these outrages which are being perpetrated within a stone's throw of this British garrison that is being maintained in Cork. Why are these officers and men kept there, endangering their lives every time they leave the barracks? As the Leader of the House, I think it was, said, you cannot immure, men in barracks and never allow them outside, though, as a matter of fact, from the information at my disposal, there are certain small detachments beyond Cork and Dublin, where the officers and men have not been allowed out of barracks for weeks and weeks past and are in very serious danger if any raid were made upon them. Only to-day the Leader of the House says: Are we going to turn down this great experiment of freedom because a few more murders have been committed?
Has the right hon. Gentleman read the speech delivered yesterday, I think, by the Irish Primate in Dublin, in which he said there is no doubt that the Protestants in the South are living in "a veritable reign of terror: indeed, a nightmare of terrifying events has been their lot for some time." After that statement of the Irish Primate, a most moderate man, who never speaks more strongly than events warrant, is it not time, when people are living in this state of terror, that the British Government,
for whom the Leader of the House has spoken to-night, and acknowledged their responsibility for these events, did something? If the Provisional Government in Ireland are unable to secure the observance of law and order, surely the responsibility of the British Government ought to be resumed. As I have pointed out before, the Colonial Secretary secured in the House of Commons a Vote of millions and millions of money to be sunk and lost in Iraq. Why? I challenged him about it, and he turned round to these benches and said that the British Government had destroyed the Turkish Government in that country, and a state of anarchy would be the result if British troops were to be removed before a fixed Government was set up in its place. And yet that is the very thing the British Government have done in Ireland, not a thousand or two thousand miles from these shores, but only 17 miles. In the interest of the Treaty and of the Provisional Government, it was an act of madness to remove police, soldiers and organisation of Government before a real Government was in working order. I say that a grave responsibility rests on His Majesty's Government. The Leader of the House was not present Himself, but I understand he has been informed of the pitiful deputation from Southern Ireland that waited on Members of this House a few days ago. Men came here with nothing but the clothes they stood in.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is travelling a very long way from the subject on which the Adjournment was moved.

Sir W. DAVISON: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the House, in his lengthy remarks, stated that the issue before the House to-night was whether we should go back on the peace effort we initiated last year, and certainly the greater part of his speech was to urge the House not to go back on what they have done, and, because a few more murders have been committed, throw away this peace initiative. In deference, however, to what you say, Mr. Speaker, I will not go further on those lines, but I do think it is germane to my argument to point out the terrible state of affairs in all classes of life in Southern Ireland. I have in my hands the deplorable case of a man holding His Majesty's Commission, H.M. Lieutenant for the
County of Roscommon, who was dragged away in the middle of the night, his wife taken from her bed, his chauffeur thrown in a pond outside the house, and then his house burned down, and now the lady has died from shock, and the life of Mr. Talbot, His Majesty's Lieutenant, is despaired of. This sort of thing is happening every day, and humbler folk came here last week, men in small businesses, who have had to leave their homes at the point of the revolver, at a few hours' notice. And now three British officers for nearly three weeks have disappeared, and all that His Majesty's Government do is to make representations, and ask a Roman Catholic bishop if he cannot do something to restore these men. The British House of Commons has always stood for liberty, and at one time we were proud to be British citizens. In early Christian days St. Paul said, "I am a Roman citizen," and was instantly released, and I can remember when it was a proud boast for a man to say, "I am a British citizen—touch me if you dare!" That proud boast, I am sorry to say, is not one that any of us can now share with pride. Now that the Prime Minister of this land shakes hands with murderers, and when the murder of British citizens takes place we only make representations and go to priests and ask them to shrive the people who are murdered. I do hope that this House of Commons, whatever votes they may have given in the past, will look at the situation at the present time, and will say that now, as in the past, British subjects, British citizens, wherever they are, whether in a foreign country, in the Dominions, in these kingdoms, or wherever else, shall be protected in their lives and in their property.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: The remarks of the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) leave me in considerable confusion of mind. Towards the end of his speech he made a strong attack upon the Government in having taken away their troops and disbanded the police before the Provisional Government were in a position to take over the responsibility. Earlier in his speech he had used no less unmeasured language as to the action of the Government in still holding Cork. I should like to know on which leg he stands: as I do not see how he can stand on both I Criticism of the Government
to-night has consisted very largely in a general demand for stronger action, but no one has put forward any suggestion as to what effective action could, under present conditions, be maintained. Everybody must feel a deep anxiety as to the position, but I do not see what more can be done, short of military intervention, than the steps announced by the Leader of the House to-night. I am quite sure that, though they have abstained from expressing that view, a great many of the critics who have spoken have military intervention in their minds. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Very well, but the experiment of self-government has not yet been effectively tried in Ireland. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] It has not! Some hon. Members do not seem to realise that there has been no election in Ireland, and it is difficult to see how it can be imagined that Ireland has yet been able to try its hand at governing itself. I do not know what is meant by interruptions.

Colonel NEWMAN: Why has there not been the election?

Lieut. - Colonel GUINNESS: Until Ireland has had an election, any intervention must be premature, and you would only be back in the same position where the Irish people could say, "We have never had a chance to try to run our own affairs."

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Do you propose intervention after the election?

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: If after that election chaos continues, intervention is a practicable proposal. Under present conditions, to my mind, it is mere insanity. We have gone so far, and cannot turn back now. I can understand hon. Members fighting in the front trench. But I cannot understand, when all parties in this House agreed to follow the party leaders of the Coalition in their programme of trying self-government for Ireland, and have thus deliberately vacated the main position that they should suddenly, in a fit of disgust, take up a position in a trench at the back of the rest camp. That is really the attitude of some hon. Members under present circumstances. [Interruption.] I do not want to be unjust to any hon. Member, but I do say that hon. Members voted as I have said. Let mc repeat what
I said. It was that all parties followed their leaders at the last election. Did my right hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) put in his election address that he was going to repudiate the promise of his then leader that he was going to try self-government in Ireland?

Sir H. CRAIK: Does the hon. Gentleman say that the policy announced by the Government in 1918 is identical with the policy which the Government are now putting forward?

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: The policy announced by the Leader of the Unionist party before the General Election was that every path to self-government short of complete separation from the British Empire was to be explored. The majority of the Unionist party did not repudiate the undertaking that Home Rule was to be tried, but all this is really beside the point which I am trying to make which is that it is very foolish to start an experiment and change your mind half-way through. Perhaps my right hon. Friend did not do that, and if so, he must have a little consideration for those who did think it wise to make the experiment, and it is to this point that I am speaking. Is England under present conditions going to be able to stop by anything short of a heavy military expedition the disorders which are now going on in the South of Ireland?
Does the House forget that before a single Black-and-Tan had been raised there wore 100 men murdered under British rule in Ireland for which no one was brought to justice I Do hon. Members forget that a British General was kidnapped under British responsibility for Ireland, and there was no very great difference in the way dastardly crimes were dealt with? It would be disastrous if we went back to a policy of vacillation, because that would only be playing into the hands of the anarchists, who are praying for intervention at the present time. The wreckers in Ireland want to strengthen their position, because they know that Irish public opinion is beginning to recognise these bandits as criminal nuisances, and they recognise that British intervention would reinstate them as popular heroes. I would only ask those who, I admit in all honesty, are impatient, and who wish to see immediate intervention there, whether they think
they can effectively protect the law-abiding inhabitants of Southern Ireland if they intervene under present conditions? Do they think the country will sanction the military effort that would be necessary for a far more effective protection than was given during the last three years? Do they think we shall be able to have the troops to prevent the murders which were taking place before the Treaty came into force? Do they think that this country is prepared to go into Ireland again and to stay there? I say that, if they are not prepared to go chat length, and if they merely advocate a sporadic intervention, they are but supporting the greater betrayal of the law-abiding citizens there.

Sir H. CRAIK: I am not prepared to follow the hon. and gallant Member into the casuistries to which he has treated us to-night, but I should have liked to refer for a moment, if he had not left the House, after delivering a few-paradoxes and humorous hits against his opponents, to the observations of the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. A. Herbert). I see that the hon. Member has now returned. I think that, when he learns longer of life he will find that grave political questions are not to be decided by paradoxes and by attempted sarcasms and gibes against his opponents.

Mr. A. HERBERT: I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I should be very glad if he would give one instance of any paradox that I have uttered.

Sir H. CRAIK: The hon. Member said that he thought it was a very good thing to suggest that some members of the Government might be sent to the trenches, and that many of us thought that it was the best place for them. Does he think that that was a contribution of sound counsel? I wish to deal with the matter in a more quiet and careful manner. As regards my Leader, the Leader of the House, I have owed for many years, and have paid, sound and solid service to him. It is an hereditary service, because I knew him who went before him, and who was one of our great leaders. But I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, Was he quite fair to those of us, his followers, in the words that he used to-night? [Interruption.] I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he thinks he was quite
fair to those of us who have difficulty in following him upon the very doubtful course which he has taken? I know he spoke with the greatest consideration, as he always does, and he did not wish to raise any strong feelings on our part, but he said to us: "You broke away from your leaders. You deserted your party." I asked him: "Had you, before you announced that decision, when we had found ourselves in the very difficult position of having to oppose you, asked us what our opinion was?"

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My right hon. Friend interjected that question. I could not understand at the time why he interjected it, because it was wholly irrelevant to what I was saying. I now understand it is because he did not hear what I said—

Sir H. CRAIK: Yes, I did.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: And supposed me to have said something different. I never reproached him or hon. Gentlemen within my party who take a different view on this question. In all the speeches I have made and in face of all the charges which have been levelled against me, I have carefully refrained from saying one word to challenge the good faith and perfect propriety of the action which they took on a great departure in public policy.

Sir H. CRAIK: I thank my right hon. Friend for those words, but he knows that I, whoever else, have never brought against him any charge of dishonourable conduct or in any way brought a personal charge against him. But let me go a little further. I thought he said that we as a small minority of the Conservative party were blameable because we did not follow his lead.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No.

Sir H. CRAIK: I quite admit that he did not mean to say that.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I did not say it.

Sir H. CRAIK: What did my right hon. Friend go on to say? I can understand why those who oppose this policy were anxious to take the very earliest opportunity of proving that he was wrong. Is that the case? Have we not held ourselves as long as patience was possible? I assure him I was unwilling to move against it once the decision of the House
of Commons had been taken, much as I disapproved and dissented from it. I waited patiently, but day by day the catalogue of crimes and breaches of the truce grew. Day after day the disgrace inflicted upon the British Government in neglecting their responsibilities has grown greater and now, if it has come to this point, that we cannot any longer support him, is the right hon. Gentleman acting as fairly as I know he desires to do when he says to us, "It was natural for you who opposed us at first to take the very earliest opportunity of upsetting our arrangements." We did not do so. We feel, I am certain the heart of Great Britain feels, that the Government has gone as far as it was possible to go in abandoning its responsibilities and in seeing, within a few miles of our own territory, Ireland given over to anarchy, and barbarous anarchy at that. That is why the right hon. Gentleman finds that those old and most loyal supporters of himself and his father and of our leaders are unable now to follow him in this course, and, powerless as we may be, we must feel in honour bidden by our conscience to raise our protest against what is being done in Ireland, and for what our great Empire is being made responsible.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: I only want to bring the House back to the real object of the Motion, which was to ask the Government what they had done and proposed to do to release three British officers and a British private from captivity, and if possible to save their lives. Anybody who has sat through this Debate, as I have, will realise that the Government say, "We have done nothing effective; we can do nothing effective without intervention by force, and we are not prepared to intervene by force because we consider that the larger issues"—the lives of four men are, apparently, not a large issue — "will be jeopardised thereby." If that is the view of the Government, though I cannot assent to it, I can see their point of view.
What is the position? We have now in Cork, Dublin, and a few other places a considerable body of British troops. The Government acknowledge that they cannot protect these troops. The troops are not allowed to protect themselves. What is the only way out of this impasse? If the Government cannot protect the
troops, though, I suppose, they wish to do so, and the troops arc not allowed to protect themselves and to use their arms, in case they should break the peace in Ireland, the only thing seems to me to withdraw those troops at once from Ireland. What useful purpose do they serve? Are they supporting law and order? No. Arc they supporting the Provisional Government? No. Are they preventing outrage and people being deprived of their lives and property? No. Can they protect themselves? No. For what object are they kept on there? Let us withdraw them. Either send others in such large numbers as would re-establish law and order, or withdraw them altogether. There is no middle course. Therefore I urge the Government, as they cannot protect these troops—they say they cannot—to withdraw them at once from Ireland and let the Irish fight among themselves.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I do not intend to talk out the Motion, but I wish to explain why I intend to vote for it. It is many months since I intervened in an Irish Debate in this House, although there have been several in which I could have intervened. In the first place, I believe that it should be made clear in Ireland, by a voice coming from every quarter of the House, that British officers and soldiers cannot be treated in this way with impunity. I therefore rise, and am sure I have the support of those around me when I say that we should make it perfectly clear that this game, which is being played with these officers and soldiers in Ireland, is dangerous.
Secondly, I look upon the retention of these comparatively small bodies of troops in Cork and Dublin as a sign of wobbling on the part of the Government. Either Ireland should be allowed to find her own salvation entirely, whatever the result of the elections, or, as suggested on the other side of the House with perfect propriety and logic, we should send over sufficient troops to restore order. There is no choice between the two policies. We must clear out altogether or have sufficient troops to have our prestige, which we are always losing at the hands of the present Government, respected. I am afraid the Government are keeping these troops in Ireland because they do not know their
own mind and are still afraid they will once more have to change their policy, as they have done in other parts of the world. That is why these British officers and soldiers are placed in danger.
I have had occasion in this House on more than one occasion to draw attention to outrages against British subjects. I did it two days ago with regard to certain fishermen of ours. That was in the case of an alien Government altogether. There is, to all intents and purposes, an independent Government nominally to-day in Ireland. We must make it clear from the very beginning that we look to that Government to respect our subjects in exactly the same way as we look to any other Government in any part of the world to respect them.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: Another recruit for the Die-hards

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: No, but I am saying this because my vote might be misinterpreted if I did not explain it. I am absolutely opposed to any form of intervention in Ireland, but there are forms of pressure to be brought to bear against any Government if only we make it clear that we are determined to stand behind our citizens. It is because it would be wrong that all the protests against this kidnapping should come from one party that I say these few words.
I intend to vote for this Motion, and I hope hon. Members on these benches, or some of them, will support me. I have never hesitated to criticise the Government or their own officers when I think they have exceeded their duty in Ireland. Now that they are in trouble I intend to stand by them. I believe that the Government, by adopting proper measures, could do very much to lighten the lot of

the troops that are left in Ireland. Above all, we should make it perfectly clear at the earliest possible moment that every vestige of British power should be withdrawn. The presence of these troops in Cork and Dublin is a source of weakness to the Provisional Government themselves. I believe their enemies in Ireland represent that they are kept there at the request of the Provisional Government. It would be very unfortunate if that came to be generally believed in Ireland. The Government are very largely to blame fox-having these troops in Ireland. They are very largely to blame for the kidnapping of these officers, but, as the thing has happened, I want to urge that all parts of this House should join in making it clear to the Provisional Government, or any other Government in Ireland, that our officers and men cannot be treated in this way with impunity.

Lieut.-Commander ASTBURY: Those who support the Government have a right to say why they support them on this occasion. Those who vote for this Motion ought to know that they are voting for war with Ireland. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish!"] It is not rubbish.

Mr. GWYNNE rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

Lieut.-Commander ASTBURY: Those who support this Motion are voting for war with Ireland, and it is only right that the country should know the reason why.

Question put, "That this House do now adjourn."

The House divided: Ayes, 64: Noes, 258.

Division No. 102.]
AYES.
[11.0 p.m.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page
Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander J. M.


Allen, Lieut.-Col. Sir William James
Davidson, J. C. C.(Hemel Hempstead)
Lindsay, William Arthur


Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
M'Connell, Thomas Edward


Armstrong, Henry Bruce
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)


Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.
Dewhurst, Lieut.-Commander Harry
Maddocks, Henry


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Moles, Thomas


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Murray, Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Gretton, Colonel John
Murray, Hon. Gideon (St. Rollox)


Blair, Sir Reginald
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Nail, Major Joseph


Burn, Col. C. R. (Devon, Torquay)
Hall, Rr-Adml Sir W.(Liv'p'l,W.D'by)
Newman, Colonel J. R. p. (Finchley)


Butcher, Sir John George
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Child, Brigadier-General Sir Hill
Hotchkin, Captain Stafford Vere
Nield, Sir Herbert


Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.


Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William
Pain, Brig.-Gen. Sir W. Hacket


Pennefather, De Fonblanque
Sharman-Crawford, Robert G.
Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)


Pickering, Colonel Emll W.
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander
Wolmer, Viscount


poison, Sir Thomas A.
Stewart, Gershom



Rawllnson, John Frederick Peel
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Reid, D. D.
Surtees, Brigadier-General H. C.
Mr. Rupert Gwynne and Viscount Curzon.


Remnant, Sir James
Wilson, Capt. A. S. (Holderness)



Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Wilson, Field-Marshal Sir Henry



NOES.


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Foreman, Sir Henry
Loyd, Arthur Thomas (Abingdon)


Adkins, Sir William Ryland Dent
Forestler-Walker, L.
Lunn, William


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Forrest, Walter
Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)


Amery, Leopold C. M.S.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camiachie)


Armitage, Robert
Galbraith, Samuel
McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)


Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.
Gange, E. Stanley
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)


Atkey, A. R.
Ganzonl, Sir John
MacVeagh, Jeremiah


Bagley, Captain E. Ashton
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Mallalieu, Frederick William


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Gilbert, James Daniel
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gillis, William
Manville, Edward


Banton, George
Glimour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Martin, A. E.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Glyn, Major Ralph
Mason, Robert


Barlow, Sir Montague
Gould, James C.
Matthews, David


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Middlebrook, Sir William


Barnston, Major Harry
Graham, R. (Nelson and Colne)
Molson, Major John Eisdale


Barrand, A. R.
Grant, James Augustus
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Morris, Richard


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-
Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert


Betterton, Henry B.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Sir Hamar
Murchison, C. K.


Bigland, Alfred
Greenwood, William (Stockport)
Murray, C. D. (Edinburgh)


Birchall, J. Dearman
Gregory, Holman
Myers, Thomas


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Neal, Arthur


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Grundy, T. W.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Breese, Major Charles E.
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Parker, James


Briggs, Harold
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Hallwood, Augustine
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Bromfield, William
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Brown, Major D. C.
Halls, Walter
Peel, Col. Hn. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hancock, John George
Perring, William George


Bruton, Sir James
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Philipps, Gen. Sir I. (Southampton)


Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.
Hartshorn, Vernon
Philipps, Sir Owen C. (Chester, City)


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Haslam, Lewis
Pollock, Rt. Hon. Sir Ernest Murray


Burdon, Colonel Rowland
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Cairns, John
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Prescott, Major Sir W. H.


Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.
Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)
Rae, H. Norman


Cape, Thomas
Higham, Charles Frederick
Rattan, peter Wilson


Carr, w. Theodore
Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank
Rankin, Captain James Stuart


Casey, T. W.
Hills, Major John Waller
Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr. N.


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Hinds, John
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A.(Birm., W.)
Hirst, G. H.
Renter, J. R.


Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Renwick, Sir George


Clough, Sir Robert
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)


Coats, Sir Stuart
Hood, Sir Joseph
Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. A. (Midlothian)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Hopkins, John W. W.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Hudson, R. M.
Robertson, John


Cope, Major William
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)


Cowan, O. M. (Scottish Universities)
Hurd, Percy A.
Rodger, A. K.


Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kinc.)
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.
Rose, Frank H.


Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
Jephcott, A. R.
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Royce, William Stapleton


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Royds, Lieut.-Colonel Edmund


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Johnstone, Joseph
Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur


Du Pre, Colonel William Baring
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)


Edgar, Clifford B.
Kennedy, Thomas
Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)


Edge, Captain Sir William
Kenyon, Barnet
Seager, Sir William


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bertweilty)
Kidd, James
Seddon, J. A.


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Sexton, James


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Knight, Major E. A. (Kidderminster)
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Shaw, William T. (Forfar)


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Lawson, John James
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Evans, Ernest
Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'cattle-on-T.)


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Simm, M. T.


Falcon, Captain Michael
Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)
Smith, W. R. (Wellingborough)


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Lister, Sir R. Ashton
Smithers, Sir Alfred W.


Fell, Sir Arthur
Lloyd, George Butler
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Fildes, Henry
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tingd'n)
Stanton, Charles Butt


Finney, Samuel
Lorden, John William
Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.


Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Lort-Williams, J.
Strauss, Edward Anthony


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Lowe, Sir Francis William
Sturrock, J. Leng


Ford, Patrick Johnston
Lowther, Maj.-Gen. Sir C. (Penrith)
Sugden, W. H.




Sutherland, Sir William
Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir John Tudor
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Sutton, John Edward
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Swan, J. E.
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.
Worsfold, T. Cato


Taylor, J.
Watson, Captain John Bertrand
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)
Watts-Morgan, Lieut.-Col. D.
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Williamson, Rt. Hon. Sir Archibald
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)
Wilson, James (Dudley)
Younger, Sir George


Thorpe, Captain John Henry
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)



Tickler, Thomas George
Windsor, Viscount
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Townley, Maximilian G.
Winterton, Earl
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr. McCurdy.


Tryon, Major George Clement
Wise, Frederick



Waddington, R.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

WOMEN POLICE PATROLS.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM: I wish to raise again the question of the disbandment of the women police patrols, and to show how their retention will help towards economy in prisons, hospitals and workhouses, will result in a great improvement in public health, and will help to maintain public morals. In reply to a question which I put to the Home Secretary on Monday he informed the House that already 12 of the women patrols had been disbanded and that the rest were under notice to go. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will delay the dismissal of the remainder of the women police, for two reasons. The first is that the suggestion of the Geddes Committee to get rid of these women police was made only in consultation with the Home Secretary and the superintendent of the police, and there was no evidence from the Home Office Committee appointed in 1920. The second reason is the increased and universal interest in the matter which has been shown throughout the country recently. That interest has been expressed in three or four different ways. First of all, I believe a great many Members of Parliament have had a change of heart. That has, possibly, been due to the electors and to the public opinion behind them. I feel sure that, if a vote were taken of Members of this House, we should have a majority in favour of retaining these women police. Secondly, the organised women of all classes and all parties in the country are strongly of opinion that the women police should be retained. I refer to large bodies such as the National Council of Women, the Consultative Committee of Women's
Organisations, which represents 67 women's societies, the Standing Joint Committee of Women's Industrial Organisations, the Women's Co-operative Guild, the Young Women's Christian Association, and many other women's societies which at this hour I will not mention. Another section that has pressed for the retention of the women police is composed of the churches and the philanthropic and rescue agencies. It is a fallacy to say that these bodies wish to do the work of the women patrols. They are very anxious to support the work which the women police are doing, but not to usurp it. Another class of societies affected, is that which includes professional and specialist societies such as the National Council for Preventing Venereal Disease. It realises how its work is going to be increased if these women are taken away from the Metropolitan Force. The College of Nursing realises how hospitals and workhouses are going to have much more to do if these women are disbanded. Then the Association of Head Mistresses realises the importance of the work which these women do in the matter of controlling and supervising children going to and from school.
Another class affected is the provisional local watch committees. At first it was thought these watch committees would follow suit, and dismiss their women police, after the Metropolitan force was disbanded. In my experience, the idea which prevails is very different. I think there is now a general recognition of the value of the work done by the women police in the provinces, especially as they have power to arrest, and the provinces are showing a superiority over London in discerning how women police are going to prove an economy, and to bring about an improvement in the moral tone of their towns. That idea is being expressed more and more freely. Such active representatives and expressions cannot be disregarded by the Home Secretary, and I appeal to him to respect this public
opinion which is growing daily. A delay of a few weeks may save much readjustment if and when this House, as representing the electors and expressing their views, gives its vote in favour of the retention of the women police. For these reasons I beg the Home Secretary not to dispense with the services of any more of the women patrols until a vote of this House is taken, and when the vote does take place, I hope that he will allow it to be a free vote.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): In the first place, I ask the House to remember that the money for the women police is taken upon the Metropolitan Police Fund Vote, and that therefore any money spent on women police is money devoted to the police work, strictly speaking, of the metropolis, namely, the protection of property and life and limb with which the police have to do. I do not wish for a moment to belittle by one word what the hon. Member has said about the work of these women police. I do not wish to belittle the welfare work that they are doing. But I have to look at this from the point of view of the work which has to be done by the metropolitan police and paid for by the Metropolitan Police Fund. I have to consider what it is the Metropolitan Police Fund is to pay for. It is to pay for the protection of the property and life and limb of the populace in the metropolitan area. I have to consider how I can best meet the reduction in expenses that are required, and at the same time preserve the work which the metropolitan police are intended to do, and which the money voted for them is intended to pay for.
I should like, in the first place, to dissociate myself absolutely from a word which has been used with regard to the action we are taking, and that is the word "disbandment." I do not think, so far as I can remember, that I have ever used that word myself. This is not a question of disbanding. There is no question of destroying the women police as women police for all time. The point is, that we have, somehow or other, to reduce our expenditure on the Metropolitan Police, and I use the same word with regard to women police as with regard to the men police—the word "reduction." It is a matter of reduction, and I have to find in what respects I can reduce the expenditure. With
regard to the men, we have reduced them to the lowest possible point. Indeed, I am having very great trouble on the part of those who are responsible for the men police, about the point to which I have asked them to reduce their force. I cannot possibly, having regard to the state of things, having regard to what the Metropolitan police have to do, ask that the male police should be reduced by an other man. We are down, in the hope of economy, to the very last verge that we can go to of the margin of 6afety. We cannot go further, and I am told on all hands by those who are responsible— superintendents, the chief constables, the assistant commissioners, and the Commissioner—" If you can see your way to saving £20,000 in the reductions we have got to make "—and £20,000 is what we shall save by reducing the women police as we propose—

Captain W. BENN: Abolishing them!

Mr. SHORTT: I object to the word "abolishing," and I have absolutely dissociated myself from it. I say "reducing."

Sir D. MACLEAN: To zero?

Mr. SHORTT: I answer, although it stops the flow of my argument, reducing to a point which can be restored at any moment. What does it matter what the number is if it can be restored at any moment?

Sir D. MACLEAN: Zero!

Mr. SHORTT: Zero, if you like. What does it matter if it can be restored at any moment?

Rear-Admiral SUETER: If it be zero you cannot restore it.

Mr. SHORTT: That is trivial. The point is that I have got to consider the safety of the Metropolis, having regard to the money I have got. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but possibly they do not know as much of the danger of the Metropolis as I do. I am told on ail hands: "If you can save anywhere, reducing expenditure by £20,000 if you can, let us have the £20,000 for Heaven's sake. Let us get more men, because that is what we want." That is what I am told by all my advisers, and, as I say, I do not want in the least to belittle the work of women police so far as it concerns the work they do, but
it is not work which deals with purely police work as we know it. It is really welfare work, admirable welfare work, I agree entirely, and I agree to this extent, that welfare work always helps the police, always reduces crime, so far as sex crime is concerned, and it is a very great work indeed, but it is not the particular work for which the Metropolitan Police Fund was founded. The fact remains that the women police are doing first-rate work. It is not the work for which the Metropolitan Police Fund was founded.

Dr. MURRAY: Keeping down crime. That is the question.

Mr. SHORTT: Keeping down crime, yes, with the sense in which the schoolmaster keeps down crime, and the clergyman and the Sunday-school teacher. If you are to put that particular argument you have to carry it much further than the women police and you have to put on police fund for more than the women police. I gave my hon. Friend credit for a little more appreciation of the position; but the fact remains that in coming to the conclusion that we must save this £20,000—which is a conservative estimate —we are appreciating fully the work that the women police have done.
We are taking no step which would prevent our setting up, in a single month, the re-establishment of women police when we can afford it. There is not a single thing we have done which will prevent the women police being reestablished in the quickest possible way the moment we can afford it. You talk about a nucleus of the police women. There is certain work the police women do. We are going to ask certain of the police women to help us to do it. One or two of them, I am sorry—I cannot say by what influence—but there are one or two women who might have done it, who have definitely refused to help us. I do not know what influence has been behind it. I think, however, that we shall be able to persuade some of them, at any rate,
who are trained, but you want trained women for certain things. We have some of the women police and we shall soon get others, and they will be a perfectly sound nucleus. Supposing to-morrow we found the state of the finances very different and we wanted to re-establish the force as it was with the same numbers t I am assured that in a month you could do the whole of your recruiting. Every recruit requires two months' training, and that is what we give them. In a month you can do your recruiting, in two months you have them all trained, and in three months you could have these women police on the streets.

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM: Why change your policy if there is a chance of their coming back?

Mr. SHORTT: But there is no change of policy.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The Government never change their policy!

Mr. SHORTT: We have changed no policy at all. We have never treated the women police as part of the police force for the purposes of safety. We have never allowed the women police to be on the streets without having a man somewhere handy. We have never treated them as anything but pure welfare work. We have never dreamed of leaving the women on the streets to keep order, to arrest a drunken man or woman. What we had to ask ourselves was this: Having regard to what the police fund had to do, having regard to what we have to pay to keep up the necessary number of men for the protection of the Metropolis, how are we to get the money and at the same time make the necessary reductions in expenditure? To keep a male force—

It being Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half-after Eleven o'Clock.